A day borrowed from Sping - or spring arriving early this year?

The new header is a photo of our beautiful river valley in May last year.  Just to remind me it will soon be SPRING again!

What a stunning SPRING day we have had today.  Sadly we wasted a bit of it on going into town for banking, new "sensible" shoes (me) whilst Sales still on, and going in search of some good cheeses for middle daugher Gabby, who is a proper "Cheesehound" and came for lunch today.  That said, I got a good walk in across from one side of town to the other, and up and down a bit looking in shoe-shops.  I ended up with a pair of Hotter shoes, which are like gloves to wear.  My standby shoes always used to be a particular style I got from Cotton Traders, but they have gone down in quality and the wide now feels tight so I think they are saving on materials every which way and I shan't buy any more from them.  

The view above is from a walk taken in March last year, when I went round by Lady P's.  This is the view across the valley towards Black Mountain taken by the top of the hill near her stud.

This photo is to remind me that the garden WILL look pretty again.  It also reminds me how spring-like it felt out there today.  I spent the afternoon gardening, with Gabby as Under Gardener, reaching up to remove dead rose branches I couldn't reach. I did some weeding too, and sweeping, and she did the yanking out of plants which were growing where they shouldn't be - an invasive Something Superbus which had got between paving slabs, and an ash sapling which had become established underneath the Corkscrew Hazel bush, and remained hidden long enough to get a good tap root down, but it was no match for Gabs!

After she left, I followed the sun around the garden and have now pruned a couple of roses, removed dead stems from the corner near the gate, weeded mightily around the blackcurrant bushes (a job still in progress!), and weeded 1/3 of the path to the greenhouse - or rather, where it is sited in spring and summer.  There is still muchly to be done.  A very BIG muchly too, but once I get going - and as long as I am not distracted by other jobs that need doing - I can easily put in an 8 hour day out there.  I have to get it all up together before we go back on the market (probably April).

Right, this won't do.  I should get an hour or so of embroidery in before bedtime, now I have remade the bed, which we stripped today.  Earlier on I was good and caught up with the ironing before we went shopping too.  Just duvet set from today's bed change to iron now.