Milder days, the birds are starting to sing, today I heard chaffinches on my run and there was a thrush that sat at the top of a tree and sang its clearly warbly song. It must mean we are over the worst of the cold and dark. I even managed a day without wearing thermals. Alan and Shirley came for dinner with an exquisite posy of flowers from their garden, intensely coloured Iris reticulata, fragrant snow drops and a clutch of cyclamen and jasmine, now just a few stems of these survive on my window ledge.