The photo above is my cack-handed attempt to capture the extraordinary sight I saw on February 18th last year. I was out in the garden on a sunny day and saw red dots on a beech tree. As I got closer, I could hear what sounded like hundreds of bees buzzing around, and actually yes, there were bees swarming over the tree, landing on one bright flower after another. I caught a few blurry shots of bees rushing away out of shot to get to the next blossom before I put the camera down and just enjoyed the sight and sound of an early spring.
What a difference a year makes. We’ve got off lightly here, but many areas of the country have had their entire average annual rainfall by now. The road past our house was closed for twelve hours while the authorities rescued cars and their occupants from a flooded stretch further down, and we gave up digging over the veg plot when the sleet started. Digging waterlogged clay soil is not so much digging as scraping the mud off your fork and spade every few minutes.
But the birds are hopeful. We have a blue-tit attacking his own reflection in our windows every few minutes for an hour every morning, a pair of ducks treating our pond as some kind of holiday retreat and the birds outside are singing that upbeat spring song, very different from the subdued chittering sound of winter.
The rain and cold has discouraged us from getting outside to get the garden prepared for this year’s growing season, but when it turns it will turn suddenly. I’ve been delaying planting those early seeds – peppers and tomatoes – as the last few years have been a case of plant in January, get seedlings that come up skinny and fall flat, plant again in March and get them coming up too late to crop. Sometime in the next week or two might be a better idea.
Right now, it’s blowing hard and cold and gusty outside (and inside, must check where it’s getting in) and I’m staying right here. The moment I get back out, I’ll be checking to see whether the beech has come out in those amazing red flowers again, or whether it is hiding from the weather like I am.
Julia Chalkley 