So here are my journal pages for March. You can click on either picture for a larger view.

I can’t believe it’s the last day of March today. Where did the month go? I don’t know about you but it flew past me, like a cold gust of spring air whipping through the trees, scattering a cloud of blossom on its way. The old saying goes that March comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb, hence my slightly disturbing looking liolamb hybrid, but over the last few days the wind has been roaring like a lion, certainly not very lamb like. I seem to remember it was pretty nice in the first week of March, so it’s been a bit of a topsy-turvy month. But at least the nights have been drawing out and with the clocks sent forward the evenings are even lighter.

Every year I spend all of February trying hard to be patient, and not start sowing too early, and by now I’m always in a slight panic about the amount of things I still need to sow. It would all be fine if the seeds would just do what’s expected of them and germinate, within a reasonable amount of time and then carry on growing strong and healthy. But a garden nursery can be as unpredictable as a baby one (not that I’d know admittedly) with seeds refusing to germinate, having a tantrum over a change in temperature, being vulnerable to accidents, diseases and pest attacks, needing a continual supply of just the right amount of water and nutrients, fighting over their space when they get too big for their pots. Phew, it can be hard work keeping them all in check.

And then, just when you’ve got them to a healthy stage in life, you send them out into the big wide world, or rather the allotment plot, where a whole new host of dangers face them. All you can do is hope they make it through and come back home to reward you handsomely and make you proud, and then it’s all worthwhile.

I’d better crack on*, April will be over before I know it. Have a Happy Easter!

*seasonal egg pun unintentional.