The old and the new

It's wonderful to see all the Blackthorn coming into blossom. This particular branch had an old wrinkled sloe from last autumn - just one on the whole bush that the birds didn't eat (or villagers gather for sloe gin) over the winter.

Now this bush is well into flowering are we going to get a Blackthorn Winter - a spell of "cold and angry weather just at the time this hardy little tree is in bloom" (William Cobbett)? Many country people have observed over many years the occurrence of a very cold spell of weather after a brief period of spring, always coinciding with the Blackthorn blosdsoming.