A ray of sunshine

In the midst of the gloom and wetness the garden is striving to convince everyone that spring is just around the corner.  The first snowdrops began showing white tips this week and a solitary aconite is trying to flower.  However, the hazel catkins are positively glowing in the darkness.

One confused plant is the Christmas box which as the name suggests should have been at it's best at the end of December but for whatever reason the buds stay tightly closed until this last week when they've all opened flooding the area around the front door with a heady honey scent. Another boon is that it's hardly rained for the last two days, a most peculiar but very welcome development! Even better is that that means the builders have been able to mend the hole in the roof!!

The constant news of the ever worsening floods in the south west triggered many office debates about the management of the area and also of the impact of climate change - which led me to put fingers to keyboard and add an entry on our occasional Musings series, read it here.

AW has been busy and has put together a very impressive CJS Focus on Volunteering, Weekly subscribers get their copy today, online readers will have access from Monday and there will be a copy in with this month's CJS Professional.
CJS Weekly has just gone to print all 18 pages with 61 adverts for paid posts (42 direct to CJS) plus 6 for volunteers.