A cold wind accompanied the squally showers that peppered the day, William and Toby stood out in the hail and carried the stones on their backs for an hour or more before they melted. The vale is filling with water and the spring in laneside is running into the ditch, no time in the paddocks for the sheep or donkeys, just too many puddles. The buds on the lilac are swelling and the elephant garlic shoots are a few inches above the bulb, trying to catch up with the softneck Marco Polo planted a month earlier, they need these cold nights to trigger splitting into cloves.
