February Colours

One thing I have noticed with the snow melting is a gentle resurgence of colour.  The fields are a uniform stubby brown, the trees are still bare, the grass is drab and brown-green.  But with the thin sunshine today these simple end-of-winter colours warmed slightly, they seemed fresher, darker, richer.  The days are noticeably longer, with the dawn at about 7.30 and it staying light until about 5.30.  And there are clumps of snowdrops everywhere, more snowdrops than I have noticed before.  The garden snowdrops have filled out and opened since we saw them poking their heads through frozen snow at the end of January,  and we are starting to notice that the primulas in the garden walls are also spreading their leaves.  But there are still smears of snow on the hills of the Radnor Forest; thin lines of wall-snow and occasional patches in deeper gullies.