:: spying on Mother Nature this morning ::

At a time of the year, when these delicate Snowdrops are still lingering here.... 

...and one of my favourite fragrant flowers is just beginning to flourish...

...Mother Nature is magically composing the most joyous symphony in our garden...and I was drawn out there with my camera this morning...delighting in every single (seeming) incredible feat of growth and abundance...

...some of the fruit trees in the orchard can't wait to frock up in their best party frills and shiver in Spring frosts bedecked in petals all pink or white...they would be the stone fruit - plums, peaches, nectarines and apricots and their delicate blossoms are mostly all ephemerally dashed to the ground in the all-too-chilly Spring winds...

...while the pip fruit family like the pear and apple above, dress sensibly in their new leaves first...

...so many wonders - like the beautiful wrapping of these quince bud petals...

...and when was the last time you really looked into the centre of a flower to check out what happens in there? All I could really think about was the promise of luscious berries in Summer...

...and leaf buds literally thrusting miniature furry, leaf-babies heavenward...

...and can you guess what this is?  I was surprised to find this soft, pink tenderness surging forth from the woody tip of...a grapevine! ... 

 and amazed at firstly the brilliant red and secondly the exquisite unpacking of perfect rose leaves...

 ...and here is the plant that spurred my curiosity this morning...a tiny green fig pertly sitting up next to a very new, very first bright green leaf sprout...on a tree, otherwise bare-naked!

 ...and there were more surprises - here are a couple of the earliest plums, while the last unfertilised (?) blossom not yet fallen, dries brown beside them...

 ...lurking beneath leaf-shields are wee blackcurrants, swelling behind flowers as they wither, crumple and shrink... 

...and in the vegetable gardens the first strawberry blossoms were floating - and this - small and green, but soon to be plump, juicy and RED... 

 and last, but not least - asleep in their pod...some baby peas, merely slumbering or growing astronomically-fast?

Ah, Persephone's Return from the Underworld to bring back the light to the Earth - how confident, faithful and abundant indeed - how lucky we humans are - if only we would realise :)