The sunshine arrived in our garden this week, this may not seem a big thing to those of you who live in sunnier climes, but we haven’t see sunshine in the garden since November! You see, we live in the lea of Otley Chevin, which is a big hill which forms one end of Rombolds Moor, the more famous bit being Ilkley Moor of ‘On Ilkla moor bar t’hat’. During the winter the sun just doesn’t rise high enough in the sky, we watch it gradually getting nearer…and then it arrives to signal that spring is on its way at last!

Things are starting to move in the garden, bulbs are appearing all over, flower buds are developing on the camellia and the magnolia stellate. The hellebores are starting to flower and the primroses are looking very cheerful. I even noticed a winter flowering heather looking pretty good in the front garden.

The chickens are not impressed with me today, we’ve got eight and they have the run of the garden over the winter, slug and bug patrolling, but once the shoots start coming up in earnest they have to be restricted to their run or they will eat the lot! I also discovered why they kept gathering on the wall by our conservatory door, giving us the hard stare. It turns out whilst we were on holiday my daughter got into the habit of throwing corn out of the door as she couldn’t be bothered to go up to the run…

Evangeline, Gracie, Clementine, Florence and Harriet

We’ve had a few frosty mornings this week, I love seeing the plants and ornaments outlined with frost.