Coming up

Part of me was disappointed at the lack of a thrilling spring storm last night, but I'm sure our rural friends are happy to have missed out on a swarm of tornadoes. Besides, a rough downpour would've quashed the jonquils which greeted me so sweetly on my way in this morning. Seems I always arrange to be out of town right when spring gets interesting. Whether due to the sudden warm-up or not, the forsythia is bursting out and it looks like bluebells before the end of the week.

Yesterday we had our first harvest from the garden. The chives have been up for over a week but we just hadn't gotten around to taking advantage of them before. The sorrel is looking lovely; I think I'll be able to do a soup with them for Gründonnerstag. Sadly, the verbena doesn't seem to have made it and I'm worried about the thyme as well. At least the autumn-blooming clematis is suddenly covered in new shoots; we've been concerned.