The new porch

The church porch is a relatively new addition to a medieval building which uses many materials and has been modified many times. I think it's been well designed and built, and I particularly welcome the fact that it provides easy wheelchair access to the church, without someone having to fetch a ramp, as well as a toilet - before, people had to go to the pub to use a toilet! This is the "back door", and the path leads directly from the old vicarage, at the other side of Vicarage Lane. The village is full of daffodils just now, and I found many things flowering in the course of a short walk - hellebores, crocuses, snowflakes and the last snowdrops, banks of primroses, quite a lot of celandines already, and blackthorn opening in the hedgerow.

I've relegated my mono Monday shot to the extra, as it doesn't fit this week's challenge, and I haven't posted any daffodils yet. The huge poplar tree and its smaller lopsided companion mark the bottom corner of our orchard, but their shape is much more visible from this lane in the bottom of the valley. A third poplar, beside these two, was uprooted in a huge storm at the end of 2013, so I fear for these in every high wind. Their leafless shape will have helped them to survive Eunice when the two much denser pines did not.

I brought in all the remaining cavallo nero today, as it's just starting to run to seed, and then dug over their bit of vegetable bed. It was good to be outside, and not cold.