Signs of Spring

Sorry the blog has been somewhat thin on the ground of late.  Since my last entry, amongst things too numerous to enumerate, I have been to Belgium and back, got a year older, built and moved a LOT of furniture (to the detriment of my hamstring, and a lovely new injury - the elbow!  Will I never learn?), and tonight I will be leading the intrepid men of Cliddesden and the surrounding area in an all-male Zumba class for charity (about which I am not a little nervous - no - about which I am officially bricking it!  So think of me this evening!).  So what with one thing and another, it's been busy times, m'loves.

However, back in the real world, after our very brief but undeniably nippy Winter the other week, Spring, it would appear, has begun springing!  Snowdrops have been out for yonks and are very old news now, darling, and crocuses (alright, I know it's croci, but it looks a bit poncey) are terribly last month, but there are two undeniable signs, in my garden this morning, that the darling buds of May are on their way WELL early this year.  (By the way, did you know that the darling buds in question don't refer to May-the-month, but to May-the-plant?  We live and learn, my ansums).

Sign one:

The primroses are jussssst beginning to bloom, bless their little yellow heads.  I always feel rather sorry for them being called primula vulgaris, when they really are the very prettiest of the primulae (aha, now I'm not caring about the ponceyness on that one).  We have a profusion of primroses in the back garden, which have naturalised themselves right through the lawn, and which spread out further yearly.  No doubt this would be an absolute picture of HELL for a serious, formal gardener.  For the happy, wilderness-loving dabbler such as myself, however, it's an absolute joy to behold, and a bloody good reason not to mow the lawn for a couple of weeks (hence an equal joy to himself, too).  

The other sign, much to my delight, is evidence that the garden amphibians are already "at it" in the various ponds in the garden.  Under The Bridge is traditionally the home of the Shy Newts.  Mr and Mrs Newt and all the Little Newts have lived there for many years, and are studied intently by the children (and myself, given half a chance) by the scientific method of lying on the bridge and removing the loose slat, then keeping very still until you catch a glimpse of orange belly flashing past.  Once spotted, you can watch them for ages - lovely little things.  However, no action is usually expected on the newt, toad or frog front until about April, so as I trampled noisily over the bridge this morning, on my way up to the greenhouse, I was surprised to the extent that I stopped in my tracks, by the unmistakeable "plopping" of frogs, toads or newts going "heads down, lads, it's a human" and disappearing underwater.  Removing the loose board, and lying on the (wet and muddy) bridge (to the unsurprising detriment of My Outfit) revealed nothing at all - but then, if it WAS the newts, they are, as advertised, Very Shy.  Further investigation was required, so I jumped across the stream and cut across, sneakily and on tiptoe, to the top pond, not advertising my lumbering approach this time.  Worth the caution.  Frogs there are, and "at it" they are!  I've lost the camera's USB cable, somewhere between here and Belgium, so am having to take vastly inferior photos on my phone, but if you look carefully in the shadow cast by my hand, you can see a frog "giving another frog a piggy back":

This is two months early, so please keep your fingers crossed for no further plunges in the temperature.  By the time the frogs have indulged in their two week orgy, they have no further energy for sexual congress for the whole rest of the year, so if the frogspawn gets frosted, that's it.  Curtains for the tadpoles.  This happened with the late frost last year (or was it the year before?), and the year before that 'Worth-Lewis (our late, lamented, Duck) ate each and every last tadpole.  Our own kids and all the surrounding ones are as fascinated by the frogs, the irresistably tactile gelatinous spawn, the development of the tadpoles (the day you spot the first legs is always a doozie), as I am - but they are marginally less capable to resist the urge to poke things with fingers and sticks than I am.  Yet still the frogs seem to survive, thrive, and come back year after year to play bouncy castles in our top pond.  Maybe they know how welcome they are? 

Final exciting garden news (to me, anyway) is that the greenhouse gave me a lovely birthday present.  I was beginning to wonder, in a relaxed kind of a way, whether there had been any point whatsoever in planting the seeds which I planted back in January, following the Dig On For Victory book's instructions.  I suspected that the seeds would come up no earlier than they usually would if I planted them over Easter, as is my wont, and that they may actually rot in the intervening period and not come up at all.  But, as it was my birthday and coincidentally a month to the day since I had planted the seeds, I thought I'd have a quick look.  You guessed it - there was a seedling!  A single pea, but nonetheless!  Naturally, I recorded this great event on my camera, but, as explained, the USB is MIA, so I can't download the photo.  A second photo taken on my 'phone today, however, shows that this little pea shoot has now been joined by no less than three broad beans!  My cup, my darlings, truly o'erfloweth.

From l to r - two rows of broad beans, two of peas, and the rest are toms.