When I saw a pic of a dandelion clock posted by Alan from Australia a few days ago I thought it would be months before I would get to play with these wonderful seedheads. Dandelions usually don't appear here until early summer so I was surprised to find that this fellow had popped up in the garden. It was doubly strange to see this summer visitor as it was minus 5 degrees (Celsius) when I set off for work this morning.
I read a newspaper article recently which asked if it was not the case that we were having a late winter rather than an early spring. It certainly seems to be the case that winter has arrived with a vengeance across much of Europe with plummeting temperatures leading to deaths and chaos. Fortunately the weather is set to get milder here over the weekend so there's unlikely to be a repeat of last year's Big Freeze.