Bank Holiday weekend… what does that conjure up for you? Nose to tail traffic jams? People stocking up as if for a siege at the local Sainsbury’s? Or maybe lazing around on a sun lounger in the garden with your favourite book?

Well, if you were looking for the first two, you might not have been disappointed this Easter, but the third? Dream on! I woke this morning to the blinding white of the early light reflecting off snow, which was coming down thick and fast. So fast that I let the first dog out, and she came back as fast as her Princessy little legs would carry her, and by the time the second dog went out, the Princess footprints had pretty much faded to mere dents. I think she levitated.

So, okay, it didn’t last long. By lunchtime most of the white stuff had melted and in the early afternoon we walked the little doggies in the park where I took that photograph of hellebores which you see at the top here. Pretty, ain’t they? I hope they’re also tough, because by teatime the white stuff was back in the form of driving hail which took the heads clean off four of my barely opened daffodils.