Winter in Spring

This was a photo taken on the 3rd May last year.  I can tell you this year everything is very much behind this.  By at least a fortnight I reckon.

There will be a couple more postings on Tredegar House, but the new Google layout is driving me nuts.  Leave the curser in the wrong place and you get a photo where you didn't want it and you have to start over . . .And can I get line space in between photos?  No . . .  Anyone else struggling or am I just a dimwit?  It really takes away half the pleasure of blogging, if I am honest.

I don't know what the weather is like for my friends across the Pond, but here it feels like we have returned to winter with a vengeance.  Heavy rain and gale force winds which from the North-East which feel like they have come straight from Siberia (which I dare say is the case).

I had to retrieve one of our dustbins from where it was jammed up against one of the cold frames, and the lid yards away.  My little plastic greenhouse has amazingly stayed put, but it is tied down - last autumn the top was ripped off it so this year I have tied the securing cords through the ripped holes and straight onto the frame. 

I have just discovered a new Google blogger problem - I cannot move text from beneath a photo and replace it above.  So now you have a photo of our newly-restored rocking chair where it wasn't intended to be!!!  My clever husband has removed every speck of the white emulsion paint with which this was covered, stablilized the loose front legs and treated the few worm holes . . .

The trees seem bemused and are putting out leaves and blossom fairly slowly.  My little newly-planted (2 years ago) Pear trees are coping.  One is covered in blossom, but the other two are very tentative and the two plum trees are still doing "naked" . . .  There is a little blossom coyly showing on my Christmas eating apple tree and the Bramley is being more beligerant and putting out blossom instead of just buds.  The other four apple trees aren't really even thinking about buds yet!

So, here we are back in winter.  Once again we are low on heating oil so can't use the central heating, only now we are almost out of wood too, so are contemplating which of two dead - and large - Willow trees to fell to keep us going.  I think I will put my money on the one in the paddock which, although smaller, is MUCH nearer the house!

Soups and stews are back in favour, and I have a real hankering for Pineapple Upside Down Cake - winter comfort food!