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

April showers

Al Jolsen once sung a song about 'April showers' which feels rather appropriate at the moment.  It feels as if it has rained constantly for months, although it must only have been a few weeks of it and it is most needed.  The garden at Hazel Cottage is a vivid shade of green, other than the muddy tracks that are forming across the lawn.  We often watch the blackbirds hopping about the garden in the rain, feasting on the worms and insects and hopefully keeping the slug population down.

Life is not a highway strewn with flowers,
Still it holds a goodly share of bliss,
When the sun gives way to April showers,
Here is the point you should never miss.

Though April showers may come your way,
They bring the flowers that bloom in May.
So if it's raining, have no regrets,
Because it isn't raining rain, you know, (It's raining violets)

It seems that we have the gulf stream to blame for these April showers - as it moves northwards in early Spring, it allows large depressions to come in, bringing in downpours of rain and hail and very changeable weather.   In the midst of all this rain, it is useful to look ahead and be glad that all this rain is helping towards everything bloom and grow in the summertime.

We were out in the countryside at the weekend and Mr C took some lovely pictures of the birds in the trees and the gardens at Mottisfont. The only blue skies we've seen around here in weeks.

Chaffinch

The Gardens at Mottisfont