Pace yourself

Today's paper kindly warned us that this spring is likely to be unseasonably cool. I tend to believe them. We've experienced a week of wonderfully blue skies most days, accompanied by bitterly cold winds sweeping in from the Nordics. Today's overnight low is forecast to reach a chilly 2°C, before falling to 0°C overnight later in the week. Sunday night's low was even lower, dropping to an icy minus 2°C.

I also read today that the extreme cold weather has delayed England's daffodil season by up to four weeks. In previous years our garden was filled to over-flowing with bright yellow blooms by early March. However, this year the bulbs are still struggling to make their presence known and none have yet flowered. The trees are also bare, whereas two years ago most were smothered in blossom by this date. In fact, this winter has been so sodden and cold that a couple of smaller trees in the backyard simply toppled over last month rather than burst into blossom.