Spring has arrived all at once in a terrible rush. A grey sleeping desolate garden has woken up with a jolt as if it had overslept; nothing, then everything. Snowdrops, weeks late poured daintily down the hillside trickling coldly, whitely into the garden, early daffodils refused to open their faces to the icy northeast wind,…

Spring arrives from Paul Vincent on Vimeo.

Spring Lambs from Paul Vincent on Vimeo.

Rain on the way Gentle rain is falling on brown fields. Though we long for the warmth of the sun, we need it badly. We have no grass for sheep and new lambs, for donkeys or chickens. The temperature has risen at last but the hills are brown and bare after the terrible winter. Everyone…

Snowdrops cascade down the hillside in an avalanche of petals. As they push their tiny tips up through a ravaged landscape we feel our spirits climb from the despair of winter. A tiny blue iris has exploded through crystallised soil by the back door, a camellia winks at me through the kitchen window and yellow…

Snow has melted, now sleet drives sideways across the valley. As early afternoon January darkness falls, icy shards bounce off frozen ground. This is our twenty eighth Christmas, twenty eighth January in this beautiful valley and it is the very first one without the reassurance of a New Year snowdrop. Rain fell relentlessly all through…