Light relief

Not much sign here of the early-early spring heralded by The Guardian. Certainly it's proving to be a weird winter, but I wouldn't write it off yet.
Over the last week I've been doing hedge surgery. Any bit of ash that's big enough will be dried and end up in the wood-burning stove, but there's still a mountain of brash to deal with.
And it has been growing as blackthorn and hawthorn has been added to the pile. It is a job that has been done in half hours now and again between showers, when there have been showers.
I can't say I've seen any evidence of buds swelling and there aren't snowdrops showing yet. Too cold and too wet here.
This afternoon a brighter spell tempted me out to the hedge to carry on with the project, only for the rain to come back with a vengeance. But along with it came an incredible rainbow, lifting a day that has otherwise been devoted to completing my tax self-assessment form (which is a barrel of laughs).
Of course, by the time I'd got my phone out of my pocket and turned it on the moment had passed; the rainbow was fading rapidly. I might have been better off looking for its end - a crock of gold would help with the tax bill.

Hedge fun

There seem to be plenty of new beech leaves elsewhere, but the buds are only just beginning to burst on the section of hedge by our front door. It's a bit of the garden that is shadowed by the house next door, so I suppose it's a little colder there.

Lower down the hedge has a leaf or two, but higher up lots of the buds are just beginning to unfurl. The new leaves have a delicacy that my camera just doesn't seem to quite get, but trying to capture the moment makes you look that bit closer at the subject.
The hawthorn and sycamore have been in leaf for a week or more, ash buds are just opening now too. I was particularly struck by the colour of the new sycamore leaves; in sunlight they look almost like polished bronze.   

Going nuts

I can remember singing the 'Nuts in May' rhyme when I was at school, or at least I think I can. Our version went something like:

Here we go gathering nuts in May,

Nuts in May, nuts in May,

Here we go gathering nuts in May,

On a cold and frosty morning.

Nuts? In May? It doesn't make a great deal of sense, does it? For that matter, frosty May mornings don't make sense either.

I reckon it's one of those things that aren't supposed to make any sense. But the best of the possible explanations is that its meant to be 'nots of May' - that's the blossom of hawthorn, or May.

We have lots of May here now; the hawthorn hedge is white with blossom and fallen petals cover the ground. Up close the air is heavy with what Richard Mabey calls a "wickedly exciting, musky smell".

I'm not sure that it's wicked, but it's a sweet scent and makes me think that I should give Mabey's recipe for a May petal spirit a try. In 'Food for Free' he suggests putting petals into brandy to make a liquer

What the hedge lacks now is wrens, which makes something of a change. While the wren parents were feeding their brood in the garage the hedge was their stopping-off point.

Much of the time one of the birds was hidden in among the new leaves waiting for the a moment when the coast was clear. But over the last few days the chicks have fledged and gone.

I'd been expecting problems as we've got cats, but it all went off very smoothly. One day they were there, the next they'd gone.