I love that day in the year when it feels like spring will never come then suddenly the tulips are 1/2 grown, the little purple flowers (crocuses?) are out. Then you have the urge to garden and realise it’s nearly ,7pm and you are still out chopping things back. Bliss 
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I even had a white wine spritzer on the terrace!
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funnily, I remarked to OH that it was 6.30 and still light … 
gives us hope that Spring is definitely here… well, more or less… well, almost… 
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Have you looked at our weather forecast? 15c tomorrow and rising until 20c early next week with a gorgeous weekend at 17c or something! The teen has told me that there will be nights back into negatives at some point. I don’t care as long as I have more light each day and some SUN!!! My poor Aussie brain just doesn’t cope well with the dark here!
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Spring has not officially sprung around here until we see the Brimstone butterflies… or so I am reliably informed by my neighbours.
For me, Spring has officially sprung when my Pieris opens up the flower buds it has been guarding, carefully, since last October…
but the blackbirds are already seeking nesting sites… and that’s another good sign
We are all in the same area so I feel exactly the same, a very short winter I thought! Been here 12 months now and I remember sitting out last February thinking it was amazing but then a cold March set in! A short winter nevertheless and the hope of a lovely long summer, can’t wait! We’ve spent the short winter renovating our gite but can’t wait to ditch that and move onto the terrace, building the new furniture and enjoying our new life in the sun…a bit of a cliche but still true. We have a big garden, and quite English (considering the house has always been owned by the French), ie. not a vegetable to be seen, but at least 50 huge trees!
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Although we are only at the snowdrop stage, I did see a couple of brimstones today. Don’t think winter’s over yet though 
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Happens most years Gillian. The French have a phrase for it - les giboulées de mars. Like April showers only much colder and more treacherous - I’ve lost plants that have come through winter to those March winds and rain.
Come on Sue, cheer up, it may never happen !!
I’m just happy that it’s stopped raining. Been quite breezy here the last couple days (SE 47).
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Getting warmer here too.
We always worry that these unseasonal warm patched encourage the buds on the fruit trees and then a frost comes along and bang goes that crop.
Interesting Peter - just been talking to a friend this morning about how hard lockdown is for her this time round. She’s on her own in the UK and finding it hard to find the motivation and be optimistic. And we talked about optimism v pessimism. I think it was Primo Levi who said that optimists were the ones who suffered the most in concentration camps because they were always hoping things would get better, whereas pessimists knew that things wouldn’t, so they were never disappointed. Perhaps an extreme example for thinking about les giboulées de mars, but I live with a central European pessimist, so I know that when cold March arrives he’ll be able to say “there - told you so!”
Being the eternal optimist… I’m sure Spring is coming along …
Spring will get here in the end… and if it isn’t here, yet, then it’s not the end… 
(excuse me misquoting from Marigold Hotel)
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I’m an eternal optimist too Stella but seeing the antics or lack of urgency from the EU/ Macron/ Merkel over vaccines even I am beginning to lose hope.
Regarding the météo, February is often nice and March is indeed crappy but I believe we have had enough bad weather since November and now firmly believe March and April will be brilliant. There, you’ve been told.
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I’m going out for a long walk this afternoon… the sun is brilliant even if the wind is freezing.
I shall look out for any/all signs of Spring and, if I don’t freeze to death, I’ll report back here…
We have just been out for a walk and it was wonderful to feel the sun on our necks as we walked back. No sign of spring just yet, but all the holly berries have gone, eaten during the cold snap.
Coffee on the terrace tomorrow?
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? Quite English = no vegetables? Is the stereotype really that we all have a potager? I wish I had a potager 
I just have an orchard.
Absolutely! And they are ALWAYS immaculate. I am very envious.
I think you have to be a very old man to have one of those potagers 
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