The markers of spring are gradually accumulating: the first snowdrops, the first honeybee, the first chaffinch with its fluting descending spring call, the first beetroot red shoots of the paeonies. I took some photos the other day of the wonderful drift of Cyclamen coum flowering on a neighbour’s bank.

Cyclamen coum on a neighbour’s bank. These self-seed freely, from seedpods with fantastic coiled stems.

A tight clump of snowdrops.

A speckled Helleborus orientalis in my garden. I’m holding the flower up as it normally hangs down so you can’t see the glorious interior.

I adore this season, with its sense of promise and renewal.