Blue sky day...

Valentine's Day and the weather's changed - spring definitely feels just round the corner! Pete and I don't really do Valentine's Day, but we have a tradition of buying a plant or two to mark the coming of spring. Today we combined that with a brisk dog walk round Ferry Meadows.

I was hoping to get a shot of courting grebes for Valentine's Day, but when I arrived realised that the camera battery was in the charger - and I had no spare! So it's another i-phone shot, showing the floodwaters rising again after the heavy rain overnight and into the early part of the morning.

We'd been hoping to buy a new Cistus, but Notcutt's seems to have gone downhill and hardly had any shrubs in. I suspect, like many rivals, they now only stock plants when they're flowering - which isn't the best time to plant. Instead we bought a few primulas and a cyclamen to brighten up the patio, and a deep red Miltoniopsis to admire indoors.

We then spent an hour or so gardening, before Ben and I went off to Sainsbury's. Time seemed to slip away and as soon as we got back we had to prepare dinner. Ben helped me produce a yummy cheesecake, made a little healthier by substituting most of the cream cheese with curd cheese. Pete and I then went out to an excellent talk on the Great Fen, and dinner was finally eaten just before ten!