Nature Notes

A beautiful spring day - it really feels as if winter is over! I saw a butterfly on Broad Street, and there are white violets down on the Riverside Path. Primroses and daffodils and celandine are blooming everywhere, and there are even a few bumble bees around. There's a lovely stand of white flowers on the Riverside Path. They look a bit like giant snowdrops, but the chap who walks Binky the white bull terrier (one of Islay's many boyfriends) says they are lucandrum "Snowflake" and not related to snowdrops at all. He says they are a wild flower, and not a garden escape.

Meanwhile, in Backfold, there's a card going round for Graham's family, being signed by all the people who knew him. He was a quiet chap, but he will be missed.

While I was in Backfold, I met a couple from Wootton-under-Edge. They told me that the local shops are closing there, but two art galleries are doing quite well, and they're considering suggesting to the town council that they should offer empty shops to other art galleries, to make Wootton an Art Town in the same way that Hay is a Book Town. A nearby town is already full of antique shops, so it would go together quite nicely with that.