Unsettled Easter ahead

Easter weekend is almost on us and it looks as if it is going to be very unsettled so far as the weather is concerned. A shame for visitors to the West Country to be sure. Whilst the worst of the snow has been "up north" in Scotland and Northern Ireland, Dartmoor also saw some with Princetown waking up to about two inches of it yesterday morning. From near the top of the hill that leads south from our village one can see across to the western flank of Dartmoor and from that viewpoint this afternoon I couldn't see any snow still lying. It's possible though that snow remains further into the moor.

The unusually cold winter certainly put a check on nature, but now it seems to be catching up. We are well and truly into the "yellow season" with daffodils, lesser celandine and forsythia well out. Good to see plenty of wood anemones in bloom as well, these do very well in the local wooded banks of the Tamar. Talking of the Tamar, that river was flowing quite high and fast a couple of days ago. I don't know where they nest but kingfishers do get seen in the area close to the weir which is not many minutes walk from here. The River Tamar is liable to rise and fall markedly over a short period of time and the thought crosses my mind: do the kingfishers nest high enough not to be flooded. I imagine they have it worked out!

A visit to the allotment and Easter date

Yesterday, especially the morning, was beautifully sunny in the Tamar Valley. Having to see someone in Luckett was a good reason to use my visit to that little village to spend an hour on the allotment there. My green fingered friend proceeded to plant some potatoes in a part of our land she had already dug whilst I removed some more of the brambles that had taken over much of the plot before our occupation. Then back home via the Rising Sun Nursery so my friend could buy some compost.

A contrast in the weather today - now grey and drab after yesterday's spring sunshine. The Met Office have been promising us something of an arctic blast over the Easter weekend which is very different to the really warm Easter we enjoyed last year. Of course Easter was much later then but the whole of April was really good weather wise, arguably the best month of the year in fact. Some consolation for us is the suggestion that we will get the best (or least bad) weather here in the southwest over the next few days. Interestingly this Easter is so early that a good many schools are waiting for another couple of weeks or so to have their 'Easter' holiday!

Some people might say that the Church should decree a fixed date for Easter rather than it being a movable feast. I like the present system: we don't know exactly when Christ rose from the dead so that it would be impossible to get a consensus on a fixed date. The way it is determined is worked out from the date of the Spring Equinox and the date of the Moon, more information on the internet I'm sure. It's very pleasing to me that in our materialistic world it is the natural order of things in the heavens that provides us with a date for the Easter Festival each year. Long may that continue even if it's freezing cold in March!