Beware the ‘blackthorn winter’……….

…….the locals, including our employer, have been warning us of the ‘blackthorn winter’, (see the dear little blossoming shrub). Granted it has been a great winter. Officially spring was declared several weeks ago and the birds and plants have been responding accordingly. But, our employer has been going on and on about the dreaded ‘blackthorn winter’!!!! The reasoning goes like this – if the blackthorn flowers all together, beware, you are in for weeks of nasty late winter. Now our theory is – if something flowers, it flowers and so we’ve been rather skeptical. However, on a trip down to Thorpeness on Saturday we couldn’t help noticing that there was rather a lot of blackthorn flowering ………The following day we woke up to an Easter Sunday covered in snow – it was gorgeous and only stayed until late afternoon, but it was enough to play in and have some fun. Whether or not we have weeks of a ‘nasty winter’ remains to be seen, but it could almost be worth it for a glorious day of loveliness!
Thorpeness was interesting – the photo shows a house build over a water tower – they call it the ‘house in the clouds’ – quaint! Thorpeness has a very posh Country Club, golf course, tennis courts, splendid weekend retreats etc etc as well as a very ominous looking nuclear power station!!!
Off to Amsterdam in a few weeks, you have to love the proximity to Europe…….can’t wait…..more about that later……xxxxxxxxxx