Azalea

Finally, we saw some sunshine this morning, and it made all the difference in warming up at least part of the flat. My study remained stubbornly cold all day, though, so I needed to keep a blanket on my knees.

It was great to have a day working at home (Edinburgh home). Aside from a couple of early meetings, I ploughed very steadily through the to do list, and was also able to do both a peloton workout and a bit of a walk up Leith Walk to see whether there were plants I wanted to take to Tain in the Green Plant Shop. The answer is that there were.

Meanwhile, my somewhat denuded balcony supplied a blip. The azalea is doing very well and is blooming, as it did this time last year. I want to plant it out in Tain, so it will come up with us in the car this coming weekend. But it will need some ericaceous compost, but there is half a bag of that up there already. I see that on the day I photographed the azalea last year, I was tying up daffodils in knots. I did some of that too today, although we had loads more daffodils than last year as I planted out an extra bag of bulbs in the autumn. What's been fantastic has been having them on the dining room table for weeks on end. The very last lot are there now.

The sun did not last very long. By mid afternoon, it was cold, grey and mizzling again. I don't think we are going to get a proper spring and summer this year.