...and a butterly fluttered by...

... A comma butterfly to be precise, which landed right in front of me in Hessenford wood this afternoon. The first one I've seen this year. And there have been other 'firsts' this week. In the Coombe the ramsons (wild garlic) are already coming into flower, although in Seaton Valley (and at Polkerris yesterday) there are still no flowers. I saw the first flower in the Coombe last Wednesday, and now there are hundreds. Although we have bluebells, daffodils, primroses, celandines and snowdrops locally, none of them do that English Heritage, home counties, picturesque carpet thing apart from the ramsons. In a couple of weeks the woods will be knee deep in white stars and wonderfully flavoursome. I always feel spring is really here when the garlic overpowers the cherry pie scent of the winter heliotrope. And yesterday, out on the cliffs the gorse, which has been flowering odourlessly all winter, was seriously into bee attraction mode with great dollops of coconut scented pollen.

I like this time of year. Every day something has changed, grown, burgeoned a little bit. One cannot but be optimistic...