Dear Readers, firstly thanks so much for all the help and advice and good wishes after yesterday’s post – I am feeling much better today, though a little weak and wobbly, and in need of a Victorian bath chair and a lady companion to take me out for a bracing walk along a seafront somewhere. Alas, there is no seafront in East Finchley and a grave lack of bath chairs, so instead I went for a little walk in the garden.

An invalid in a Victorian Bath Chair – photo taken by Arthur James of Louth from Lincolnshire and found on http://www.19thcenturyphotos.com/An-invalid-in-a-bath-chair-126559.htm

And the snowdrops are so wonderful this year. I don’t know if I’ve finally done something right, or if they just take their own sweet time to get established, but I have a positive thicket of them right under the whitebeam, where they draw the eye every time I look out of the kitchen window. They are almost too white, and I always have to turn the brightness down on my camera to prevent them from flaring. It’s as if each one has its own halo, and maybe it does.

I love that little kiss of green on the petals too. In fact, the more I look at the flowers, the more they remind me of a rabbit, with those long ears and two front teeth. Or maybe I’ve just been indoors for too long.

I am wondering if I should take a chance and split this little bunch once they’ve flowered, or if I should just leave them alone to do their own thing. I am hesitant to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and since I have no idea what I’ve done right this year my instinct is to leave them be for a bit longer. Or will they get too crowded? Help, gardening friends! I won’t hold you accountable if what I do is a disaster.

Goodness, they are boinging up everywhere (technical term). And they aren’t the only things. It looks as if the squirrels might not have got all my bulbs after all, though I have not the faintest idea what these are – muscari, possibly? They seemed to be less favoured by the rodents than the crocuses.

And finally, these two calendulas, a gift from my pal J, have been flowering all year, and even now, when it’s barely above freezing, they’re putting on a brave face. Is there anything more cheerful than those bright orange flowers, and if I was a lone hoverfly I’d be very glad to see them indeed.

I had a quick look in the pond too to see if there were any frogs yet, but no sign. I am determined to actually mark the first frog of spring this year, so often I get distracted and the next thing I notice is that there are about a dozen of them. Any froggy activity in your neck of the woods yet, readers? Last year I first posted about them in mid March but I mention that I saw the first one ‘about a month earlier’, so any day now. I can hardly contain myself.