A typical spring day?

I wondered today whether there was such a thing as a typical spring day.  Early this morning, eating my toast whilst walking through the garden in the warm sunshine.  Picking some lovely spring flowers to decorate the house a little and bring some sunshine in.  Running outside to get the laundry in when there was a shower...  Then back out into the garden to do a lot of weeding.  Then as we came back in, the hail storm started....    Then the sun shone...

"In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours." 

Mark Twain

The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.
Yet the back yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree--
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.
- Sara Teasdale, April 

A gush of bird song, a patter of dew
A cloud and a rainbow's warning;
Suddenly sunshine and perfect blue
An April day in the morning!
- Harriet Prescott Spofford

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud come over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.
- Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time, 1926

Easter weekend and the missing simnel cakes

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter, when I thought about my post I had to add in a picture of a lamb.  This one belongs to my sister in law.  It was being taken for a walk a few weeks ago.

A year ago the spring bulbs were out in our garden and looking resplendant in the spring warmth.

This year they are still tightly in bud and despite the increased daylight hours, nothing is warm for very long and they remain closed.   We've read that this has been the coldest Easter weekend for some years, and I must agree as I sit here typing with a blanket on my knees!   I was very pleased to help our church flower ladies this Easter and am really quite proud of my first major display.

I don't know whether its the cold weather, but we've seen some different birds in the garden lately - a pair of wrens flitting around our herb pots near to the back door, and a small group of chaffinches feeding at the end of the garden with the blackbirds.  Mr C has taken a few pictures which I hope to post soon.

We did a lot of cooking over Easter, and instead of my usual large simnel cake I did mini simnel cakes.  I would have taken pictures but they were so lovely most of them have been eaten! I did take a picture of our Easter tree though

I must also continue with my patchwork cushion...