Clematis montana and expectant snail

I awoke rather too early this morning, spluttering and coughing violently again. Helena made it clear by hiding under the sheets, that she didn't want to be awake, so I got up to make a pot of tea and to have a go at clearing my wheezing lungs.

Bomble, having tried to awaken us earlier by pawing our faces, was now waiting on my window sill. When I went to stroke him, I saw how lovely the light was, with the early sunshine illuminating the whole valley and bringing out the range of colours in the landscape and the sky, with the moon still hanging about above the horizon. I picked my camera up from my desk, snapped some landscape views very badly and went downstairs to try and waken properly.

While the kettle boiled, and Bomble ate the rather horrible looking food I'd bought for him yesterday, I went out onto the patio. There in the cold air I found the remnants of last night's rain glistening in droplets all over the clematis montana and honeysuckle that adorn that area. Tiny strands of sun light were sneaking through the now increasingly leafy branches of the nearby trees, signifying the ending of our views to the east, but also the beginning of spring proper.

I looked to see if I could catch any of the sunlight on the water droplets, which I realised were also comprised of a heavy dew, but there was nowhere I could stand in my dressing gown that let me get close enough.

The clematis montana is a visitor from our neighbour's garden and has progressively, if not rampantly, clothed a vast area of the fences, our honeysuckle and the vine I planted when we moved here. I did see one of the countless clematis buds had actually started to open up this very morning for the first time, but it was too shaded to capture clearly.

This view of a series of buds is, as you can see, accompanied by a snail who appears to have been waiting there all night for the food to come once the growing process kicks into gear. I am blipping it not only because it looks so redolent of the forces of nature to come, as spring arrives, but also in memoriam to another snail I trod on unexpectedly, and scrunched to oblivion, as I moved closer to take this shot. RIP