little flowers are spreading

No ducky photos this time, just lots of flower pictures.  When doing the duck run yesterday morning [I start at 7 these days as it gets light around half past six] I suddenly saw that lots of the 50 yellow aconites I planted mid January were popping out of the ground:

 You can see how the ground is cracking already now it's starting to dry after all the rain we've had  -  shall there be a hosepipe ban before long?

 
Having fetched the camera to record the emerging aconites I went round taking pictures of the many snowdrops and crocuses in many places in the garden, making me think that Spring is a lot closer than Winter.

 In the old chicken enclosure you can see some of the results of how the chickens used to scratch and spread the snowdrop bulbs.


When I looked how well the snowdrops had spread under the giant mock orange I saw an egg [from last year] in a hollowed out nest in the furthest hidden corner[arrow].  Had Billie-Jean been trying to breed again?  That's the very place where we found her first outdoor nest in 2012.



I'm so pleased to see the snowdrops spreading in so many places, in front of the house, along our beech hedge along the roadside, under the Maigold rose and the Magnolia and right in front of the sunlounge under the curly hazel and among the beautiful hellebores:

                                           

The crocuses seem to be doing just as well:

To finish for today a picture of the bunches I put together for the Luncheon Club - the white camellias are still providing the main 'ingredients', there are pieris, photinia, wallflowers, hellebores, snowdrops and a few daffodils in bud.