The sun finally came out!

We had an exiting time when we arrived back in Church Stretton. It was much colder in Dublin when we landed than when we took off from Chicago, and when we got to Birmingham there were flurries and a bitter wind. However, there was no snow on the ground there. As we got closer to home there was more and more and when we turned into our drive we were faced with about 3 inches of wet slippery stuff. We slid down to the house, John had to use the hand-brake to control the car! We unloaded, had a quick visit with our kind neighbours who have been taking in the mail and then we tumbled into bed.

Next morning we had to take the hired car back to the airport. John couldn't get it up the drive so we had to dig ourselves out! I never thought I'd see this in England! The weather continued to be absolutely ghastly for the next week or so. We've had a raw, penetrating wind from the east bringing temperatures just above and below freezing and snow flurries, ice-pellets and other nasty things that only we weather weanies can really get happy about!

Fortunately, it's changed for the better over the last couple of days. The sun came out and the wind died down although it's still quite cold.


Here are a couple of pictures of some of the flowers we found when we came back. There's lots more heather in bloom now, several patches of Pushkinia are out in the rockery and there's a dogwood in bloom at the eastern end of the garden. It's not one of the showy dogwoods, but it has clusters of tiny yellow flowers and I think it's the Cornelian Cherry - Cornus mas. Some of the winter flowering shrubs are fading off now. The fragrant winter honeysuckle is almost done as are the Mahonia and the Wych Hazel. However, we have some Hellebores to add interest, the Bergenias are pushing out long spikes of flowers and the Euphorbias are almost out, too.

At last, we're both starting to feel a bit better although we're still coughing, snuffling and wheezing a lot. This last week has been rough with both of us having nasty colds (mine with a fever for 4 days, too).

The combination of bad weather and bad colds has kept us indoors most of the time. We've missed meetings and field trips and we had to cancel our trip to visit Georgie and Peter. No gardening was done, of course, although it's in desperate need of it now. I've got to get some of the leaves and other garbage off the beds otherwise the new stuff can't get out of the ground.

Someone is actually doing some gardening for me. Every day there are more and bigger holes in the lawn as the badgers continue to dig and hunt for worms. AAAARRRRRGHGHGHGH! That's what you get for wanting to live near wildlife!

The cold has really retarded a lot of the bulbs. We have very few crocus, the snow drops are still in full bloom and the daffs haven't opened up yet although the flower buds are there and ready to burst as soon as we have a couple of warm days. There are clumps of daffs everywhere in the garden (in some cases there are swathes of them) and they seem to vary in size and type, so I'm really looking forward to seeing them when they finally come out. I'm glad we didn't miss them while we were away - I was afraid that we would.



What I was forgetting was that the spring is a much more leisurely season over here. It takes a long while to progress through the sequence of spring flowers because it's cooler and takes a lot longer for the ground to warm up. Over the next couple of months I hope to keep you posted as the various things appear. Stay tuned for pictures of lots of spring flowers from my garden and perhaps from the surrounding hills.

Well, that about sums it up for our trip and the dreadful aftermath. Send us an e-mail when you can to : joanarnfield@gmail.com.