First Day Of March.

 Fittingly the sun has shone all day long.

Where has the time gone? March here already, winter in all but name behind us and hopefully a normal life in front of us. 

The day started out rather cold with surely a minus on the thermometer but then it warmed up to a lovely sunny day with at least 15 degrees in the sunshine. Not so in the shade, an almost instant shiver. It had beckoned to be such a lovely warm day coupled with the weather gal mentioning a warm day, which prompted me to quickly do a load of washing to hang outside.

It sounds silly but there is something so divine about hanging washing on the line. The freedom of it and the ease of it. There is only so much patience one can have hanging washing all over a rickety drying rack in the bathroom. Look it works but lacks that magical fragrance of sun dried laundry.

Our washing line has hibernated next to an abandoned outside shed which has been home to a shrub of blackberries. Yes, sounds great until you notice the prolific expansion of long dangling twigs filled with piercing weapons. Yikes, one wisp of wind and clothes will be spiked upon the waiting bramble twigs. No, that won't do at all.

So, armed with secateurs, rake and a big empty container I tackled this blackberry shrub after breakfast. Not for the faint of heart indeed. Despite having gloves made especially for rose pruning, those little sharp needles had no manners and pricked my hands with apparent glee. Well, I showed them...they have been chopped to pieces and are now keeping the various bits on our compost heap company.

My chop-chop job was far from perfect but at least this season our laundry won't be studded with tiny holes. Only a bit sorry about the fact that we'll have less blackberries to pick but never mind, I know plenty of places along the forest's edge which will be happy to provide berries for us this summer...

Biggi