Mixed Up March and an Odd Thought.

The Great British climate is known for its capricious nature, and March is probably the most capricious month of them all. This year she’s wearing her spring outfit so far. The end of February was mild, and the beginning of March is even milder. We’re forecast temperatures rising to 15°C (59°F) this week, which we’d be reasonably content with in early May.

And so the blue tits are paying a lot of attention to their regular nest box behind the kitchen.  The white snowdrops on the fringes of lane, field, and garden are more prolific than usual. The hares are seen in pairs (there I go finding rhymes again.) The wild garlic leaves are well advanced on the high embankments of The Hollow, and the first celandines, daffodils, and even dandelions are casting splashes of golden yellow among the new wild grasses everywhere. And next week winter might re-assert its grip.

*  *  *

Next week I have to go to my home-from-home, the Royal Derby Hospital, for a cardiac MRI scan. Apparently they take longer than most MRI scans, and the pre-procedure dietary disciplines are a little draconian. Every time I go there I look at the bulk of the massive monobloc building and imagine that it’s probably where I’ll take my last breath one day. And do you know what saddens me every time I think that? The fact that the Lady B never visited the inside of my house. She came up the garden path with her mother once, but that was as far as she ever got.