Has Someone Moved the Clock Forward?

My sister sent me this photograph today of the weather station in her house at Balsall Common, West Midlands, and you can see that at 7.35am this morning it was a chilly -6.4 degrees!  It was quite cold when we went to bed in Emba last night after the quiz but when we got up it was another clear, bright and sunny day and for once look settled.

As we have our first visitor of the year arriving next Saturday (11th) we want to try and get the place looking as nice as possible - this has been nigh on impossibly over the last couple of weeks and everything has looked very bedraggled after all the rain, hail and frost.

John was busy finishing off the 'downstairs' toilet and there is only a limited space in there so I decided I would tackle the front garden.  This has been under several inches of water on several occasions over the past couple of months so I am surprised that anything has survived but believe me the weeds have - and some!!  It has looked a right old mess when you come in through the front gate so it doesn't give a very good first impression.  

I have been itching to get to grips with this for days now so I was glad to get the opportunity and even more pleased when I spotted the tender shoots of daffodils coming through.  We had bought the bulbs back in the summer and I had forgotten all about them.  I have to say I am quite surprised that they haven't rotted away!  Several of the plants I put into that area have died which is a shame but the fruit trees are still there and some of the marigolds have survived (and self-seeded I hope) plus I have some Californian poppy seedlings coming up from some seeds I threw in there and of course we will have some daffodils now so all is not lost.

I don't want to make too much of it for those of you freezing your socks off in the UK but as the day progressed it got hotter and hotter in the front garden which is sheltered and South facing and eventually I had to strip off some of my layers and ended up in a vest!  Feeling the tightness of the skin on my shoulders tonight I think I must have caught the sun.  I can't believe it.  We are now crossing absolutely everything in the hopes that we can have some days like this when Vix is here - it will make all the difference to our plans and will be so much more pleasant.

John has made a stunning job of the 'downstairs' toilet, putting a contrasting piece of wooden trim over the raw edges of the tongue in groove.  He has done some wonderful work with wood in the house - once he found the Wood Yard in Polis and found the wood to be good quality and relatively reasonably priced there was no stopping him!  The Wood Yard's profits must have soared since we arrived in May.

We worked on through until nearly 3.00 when we were both exhausted and filthy!  The real bonus about a day like today is that if we wait long enough then the solar panels can do their job and heat our water.  Today was the first day this year when there was enough sun up here in Droushia for us not to have to have the immersion heater on at all - result!  I know that down in Emba Mum and Dad rarely have to use their immersion but unfortunately the same is not true here.

We stood and watched the cats on a foray out in the field before going for a shower at which point it looked like Chivers had found himself a new vantage point - John tells me that he put him up there but that Chivers managed to find his own way down!

Clean, fed and checking out some Lidl wine - the weekend begins - we are hoping for more of the same unseasonally warm weather tomorrow - it could almost be Spring!