Hallelujah!

Do you know I think Spring has finally sprung.  What joy!  I managed to get myself out of bed at a proper hour this morning, 0615, and took Tilly for a walk round the block.  Recently I have been lying in bed thinking about doing the deed, knowing full well that I will love every minute of it, but since we got back from Australia I just haven't been able to drag myself up and out.  But today was the day.  It's Mr Gaucho's birthday and I knew I was going to be up to my elbows in tapas dishes for this evening's celebration so I thought that a bit of fresh air would set me up very well for the day ahead.

We walked down the drive and a little Jenny wren was flitting from branch to branch in the wood, and then I saw a beautiful pair of bull finches.  There is a little thicket of blackthorn they seem to enjoy and I have seen them there quite often.  Then, apart from appreciating some lovely shadows made by the early morning sun on furrows across a field of newly planted potatoes, and hearing the sky lark which is always just so uplifting, my next delight of the day was the sight of the hawthorn leaves bursting out.  Look!  Isn't that what we have been waiting for?

I looked across to Traprain Law and the fields between it and me.  Although I have been enjoying that view for three years now it has only been in the last few days that I have really noticed that there are some fields which have a range of the most wonderful colour.  They are red and variations of red - a bit like the Devon soil.  I really don't know why they haven't sung to me before.  Anyway, I was hoping they would be a bit more obvious in this photograph but I think they are just a bit too far away.  You can maybe just pick up the colour.   It's very rich and distinctive.

We walked on and then saw the first hare of the day.  They are such wonderful creatures and it never ceases to amaze me how big they are.  Further on still and we saw another, and then a field with four, playing in the early morning sunshine.  They were really quite close and it was just extraordinary to be able to watch them chasing around in the open and then running off into the wood.  I tried to take a couple of photos but they didn't come out well enough to show here, which is a shame because I just think I am so lucky to see these animals and I am very aware that so many people go through life and never see a handsome hare running wild and free!

The weather today has been quite perfect.  The wind has dropped, the sun has shone and it has been positively Spring like, as it should be on 19 April!  I managed a short time outside at lunchtime but generally I have been cooking up a tapas storm in the kitchen.  It all went well and we are now well and truly FtoP.  That means Full to Popping.  My mother once got sent from the dining room by her Edwardian aunt and uncle for saying that after a very filling lunch, back in the 1920s!