a promise of spring

There was real warmth in the sun today, and the bees were out, working the snowdrops, the japonica, the daphnes, and the first few crocus in the lawn.  It was a pleasure to see them.  I am fairly sure that they were from my hives, since there was a winter years ago when my bees died and the red japonica under the kitchen window stood silent and empty on even the warmest days. There are other local beekeepers but none very close by, and I suppose that bees don't travel far for forage at this time of year and that scouts from other people's colonies didn't make it as far as our garden.

It was a relief to see the crocuses, as I'd begun to worry that something might have eaten them. The yellow ones on the roundabout at the top of the Hythe in Colchester have been out for ages, and I remember our purple Crocus tomasinianus overlapping with the snowdrop season.  They only open for the sun, remaining firmly closed otherwise, and the narrow, dull purple shafts are not easy to see from a distance, but they are coming up.  Open and with the sun streaming through the petals they make splashes of brilliant mauve, with vivid dots of orange pollen at the centre.  I planted another two hundred and fifty hundred bulbs last autumn, but should probably just draw a deep breath next time round and order a thousand.  I read articles about gardeners who started with fifty bulbs and now reckon them in tens of thousands, but mine don't seem to increase that quickly.

The sap from the sectioned birch must be sweet, since the Systems Administrator reported that there were bees in the wood paying great attention to the sawdust.  A fat lot of good that will do them.  They were probably interested in the snowdrops as well.

I had to go out later on, and remembered to take a thank you card for yesterday's hospitality with me.  I was rather taken aback on turning the corner of the lane to find that the post box had gone. Vanished.  Disappeared entirely, with nothing but a little bald indentation in the hedge and area of freshly dug earth to show where it had been.  I could only conclude that the Royal Mail removed it as a cost cutting exercise, to save emptying it.  It served a handful of houses, probably no more than fifteen or twenty within a half mile walk of it, and if it hadn't already been there I wouldn't have expected them to install one.  I was surprised, though, that there hadn't been any notice taped to it previously warning of its imminent demise.  Alternatively someone could have stolen it, though since the world price of metals peaked and regulations on scrap dealers tightened that seems less likely.  But thieves did take the metal gate from the old churchyard on the opposite side of the lane, a few years back.