What happened to the Promise of Spring?

Yes, yes, I know, it's only March and I live in the northern hemisphere where March often has a sting in the tail, but, come on, my jonquils are flowering their tiny little hearts out! Or rather, have been.

And this is the scene in my garden now:

The ancient beech in the field over the wall  

the border bed between me and the castle

the view into the village

the Japanese ornamental cherry tree.

I love it when the snow accentuates the perfection of the

tree's bone structure

It's quite sad; for the first time in years (covid years) I had formally invited some ladies to come and join me for lunch. I planned it like in the old days, a proper lunch, with a starter, main course and pudding. Simple fare, but much fancier than my solo lunches. So what happens? First one rings up to say she can't make it out of her front door and the other one rings to say she can't make it down the hill from her house into the village. Actually, they would probably not have made it down my drive from the road either. Even a  delivery man refused to drive his van up to the house, but rang to say the drive had disappeared. I KNOW that, silly man, so I suggested he could just carry the stuff up. "Oh, but I am wearing ordinary shoes," he said, "my feet and trousers will be soaked." I am afraid that I said, "that's not very intelligent, you must have known about the snow on your delivery round." You'd think their depot would encourage them to carry suitable footwear for their rural deliveries, wouldn't you? Apparently not. I stayed heartless. His final feeble excuse was that, yes, he knew it had been snowing for 24 hours, but nothing like this in the town he came from. Pathetic.

So, for the last two days and the next two, I am eating the vegetables I had defrosted for my lunch party, a mediterranean mixture of red and yellow peppers with courgettes, shallots, a carrot, celery sticks, sun dried tomatoes, lots of herbs and spices. I didn't want to risk refreezing the dish. Also, four individual portions of tender chicken thighs remained on the menu. Luckily, I could freeze the smoked salmon starter and the garlic bread to go with the main course. But the chocolate puddings still smile at me every time I open the fridge. And there I was, hoping to scale down my consumption during lent!

Life is hard.

PS: because I am still having problems with commenting on some of your blogs I will try and answer any questions or  remarks that require a reaction under your comments  here in future.