This Week's Firsts.

1. I saw a hare hopping up the lane which goes past my garden. In all my life I’ve never seen a hare on a road before. They’re usually in a field and some distance away, but this one was only a few yards from my gate and at one point started hopping towards me. Being cursed with a neurotic tendency, the singularity of the event worried me because hares are said to be harbingers of bad fortune. I thought of writing a post on the question of whether harbingers exist and whether superstition in general has any merit. I didn’t because I was in a bad mood from seeing a hare hopping towards me.

2. I saw the first swallow of the year at the top of the lane this morning, and then I saw two more. And I thought, as I always do when the first swallow graces the sky and my sight line, ‘One swallow does not a summer make.’ I don’t suppose three do, either.

3. The first leaves appeared in the potato patch, and now there are seven new plants and climbing. The last of the broad beans also appeared, which means I now have a whole regiment of broad bean plants growing strongly. That’s only a first because it’s rare for all the seeds in the first sowing to germinate. The peas, however, are being disappointingly reluctant at the moment. Too cold, I expect.

4. I saw the first parent bird feeding one of its chicks at the bird table – a male blackbird and a plump young female. Now I’m waiting to see how long it will be before he tells her to go away and get a life. They usually do eventually.

And now I’m asking myself why anybody should be remotely interested in my little life in the Shire, and whether I care.