Magnolia bud

The temperature was showing signs of improving by the time I went for a wander around the garden with my camera in the late afternoon - maybe spring is returning.

This will be the first year that the magnolia soulangeana planted over Fido's resting place has flowered in the spring.  There are only a few buds, but it's a start.  At least it is sufficiently "behind" that the flowers will not have been damaged by the icy conditions over the last few days.  

It did flower last year - one flower, VERY late in the year, and it didn't open very successfully.  I thought I blipped it at the time, but can't find it, so maybe the photos were not "blippable".

I wasted spent another day messing with Ancestry.  When I tracked down my DNA profile yesterday, I discovered messages from three people who had relatively close matches, wondering about our relationship.  I answered all of them, and got a response from one - I found a distant cousin in Devon - great grandson of the brother of my great grandfather.  This sent me off down a rabbit hole updating my family tree with these new relatives.  

Prior to that, I had found a way to download the entire tree from one profile (the one without the DNA info) and upload it to the other profile with the DNA info.  Now I just need to contact Ancestry again and see if I can transfer my subscription to the profile with the DNA info, and I'll delete the other one.