Be My Valentine

Love all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
John Donne


Aren't they sweet, my lovely Russian Blue Delia (on the left) and my youngest Ruskie Merlijn. He's so protective of her, isn't it adorable?

And those little turtle-doves, sitting so close together in the walnut tree. Well, it's Valentine's day so what did you expect?

It's raining today and it's rather grey and dull again. I long for spring, for all the colours it brings, the freshness of it, the new life in the garden.

After month after month after month of dull grey skies and lots of rain, we could do with some cheering up. I'm so glad I've planted lots of bulbs last autumn as they cheer me up immensely.

The snowdrops are doing fine and so are several other early flowering bulbs such as crocuses and winter aconites. To my surprise I found a few daffodils in flower as well. They are very early this year. Last year they were very late as winter showed up rather unexpectedly during March and April. In the end we had the daffodils, crocuses and tulips in flower at the same time. Very weird.

Februari is een herrieschopper.
Hij mist de kalmte van de grote winter
en draagt de prikkelingen
en ergernissen van de
in aantocht zijnde lente al in zich mee.

My translation:
February is a troublemaker.
It lacks the calm of great winter
and already brings the stimuli
and annoyances of the coming spring.
Vincenzo Cardarelli "Februari"