Spring is Springing

I walked round the park a few days ago with the dogs and noticed lots of pretty white blackthorn blossom.

I brought a few branches home along with some pussy willow, some sweet little wiggly beach catkins, hawthorn that is just coming into leaf and bud and a couple of other sprigs I'm not sure of. Popped them all in a tall Kilner jar with a few daffodils (I really must buy a jug) and it looked like instant Spring!

 The daffodils were bought as the ones in my garden are only about 10cm tall at the moment. The extremely cold weather and recent snow have slowed down their growth. Other years I have been able to pick them by Mother's Day!

Look at the beech catkins now, only a couple of days later!

When I set off on my walk it was bright and sunny but as I walked I could see the fog coming down and it got quite chilly. I need to perfect the skill of walking dogs and taking pictures at the same time! Recent attempts have been pretty disastrous. My pictures tend to end up blurry as the dogs pick the moment I click to pull on their leads after a bird or an enticing new smell.

I love snowdrops and always look out for their first appearance as then it really feels like Spring is here. Years ago, too many to say, when I was making the daily bus trip to and from college I would look out for the little patches of white in the hedgerows and gardens. They always made me smile, those fragile little blooms nodding in cold February winds and appearing where you would never expect them to survive. I can remember my mum and I trying on numerous occasions to get them to grow in our garden. We bought bulbs that never grew. Then someone told us you must move them in the green and kindly gave us some of their well established patch. But to no avail, we planted them in our garden and never saw them again!
 The day before yesterday I was down the bottom of my garden, or mud patch now the dogs have raced around it all winter! I was just having an idle look at what was happening down there, when over by the fence I saw a patch of white! It wasn't just a patch of leftover snow either. Little white nodding heads, I had snowdrops in my garden! I never planted them! Where have they come from! I started to grin, I told the dogs ' look snowdrops'. They didn't seem impressed, but that little patch of white made me so happy. I smiled, I laughed, I shook my head!
Snowdrops! Snowdrops in my garden. It felt like a small miracle!
Hopefully they will spread now that they are here.

Today I braved the mud patch again and took these;

The blackcurrant, that some birds kindly planted by my shed door a few years ago, has started to wake up in the Spring sunshine. I do love my very weathered shed door! I have to say it is very past it's best and needs replacing but a new one wouldn't look half as good in this picture. 

 

My  Pieris 'Forest Flame'  loaded with buds, with the promise of rich red new leaves to follow.

My Spirea japonica 'Candlelight' that has gorgeous lime green leaves to begin with that get touches of russet around the edges as spring moves into summer. This picture (and the others I took did not turn out that well, the wind was blowing the branches about so I got lots of blurry shots! The light is a bit odd in this but if you follow the link you will see how it looks later in the season, when photographed properly.

At the moment I am taking pictures with my iPhone. I am quite impressed with the camera but I'm still saving for a 'proper one'.

I hope that now we have seen a few sunny days that the cold weather doesn't return. When I woke up this morning there was quite a frost but soon the sun came out and chased Mr Frost away. it's been a lovely sunny day, too bad I have been at work for most of it!