Barely a week ago the weather around Longoio was like this:

Longoio recorded temperatures of minus 5 and l have rarely seen the ice in my tub so thick.

I was worried for my camellia buds:

And Cheeky looked despondently on the desolate scene.

It’s been all change this week, however. Temperatures have risen by over ten degrees and the skies have turned to muggy mists rather than the freezing blues we’ve been having.

In the wood surrounding our cottage a welcome bunch of daffodils are blossoming, ready for March and Saint David’s day.

The hardy hellebores line our forest paths:

Our scattering of garden flowers are recovering.

The fountain in our outside wall retains its hardy foliage 

while the terracotta Madonna I placed there all those years ago when I first came here looks benignly on the scene.

My coveted calendar, given free at the Erbolario natural medicine shop at Fornaci, reflects the patch of snowdrops nearby.

In English the name ‘snowdrop’ implies that these bold little flowers have dropped onto the white stuff from above. In Italy these flowers are even more audacious since the name given to them is  ‘bucaneve’ – literally ‘snow piercer’.

Let us emulate these flowers and all that spring promises in our own hopes at these difficult times and may they be equally positive.