Firstly thank you so very much for all of the kind messages on the previous post, you really are the best and I am glowing from all the warm comments.

At last it feels like Spring is gathering pace here. Today has been mild and sunny and this cheery bunch of daffs from the market is brightening my table. For the first time this year I’ve hung the washing outside on the line and while doing so saw the first of the bumblebees buzzing around the newly opened plum blossoms. In the last week the trees and hedgerows have gone from bare and tired looking, to fresh with bright green shoots and frothy with bridal-white blackthorn blossom. The snowdrops have been good this year but are already starting to fade and are being replaced with primroses, anenomes and the first of the daffodils.

The best place locally to see a carpet of snowdrops is in the little churchyard of the St John The Baptist church in Great Amwell which is where I photographed these. It’s such a beautiful churchyard set on a wooded hillside and surrounded by the river, canal and water meadows. I like to sit there sometimes as it feels so very peaceful and there are always lots of birds to listen to and watch.

There are also some interesting inhabitants in the graveyard including Harold Abrahams (buried together with his wife) who was the Olympic runner depicted in the film Chariots of Fire and many of the gravestones are beautifully carved and very old. The church is also where Richard Warren married Elizabeth Walker in 1610. Richard was a passenger on the Mayflower in 1620, settled in Plymouth Colony and co-signed the Mayflower Compact. After settling he moved his family from Amwell to Plymouth where he and Elizabeth lived until their deaths (they are both buried at Burial Hill in Plymouth) and they are the ancestors of two U.S. Presidents, Ulysses S. Grant and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Some of my favourite walks are around the little village of Great Amwell, it’s a quiet and gentle place with lovely countryside…

Amwell village in Hertfordshire, about twentie miles from London, not so obscure in itself (if wee consider eyther aptness of the seate, sweetness of the ayre, delicacy of the soyle, mixture of pleasant hills and fertile valleys, thicke woods and serviceable rivers, both fitly and plentifully enterlaced, all which may yeild both pleasure and profit to the inhabitants) as by reason that it is overtopt by foure towns of note barring it on either side from the eye of observation (Hartford to the west, Stansted to the east, Ware to the north and Hodsdon to the south.

Description of Amwell by Thomas Hassall written in 1631, The Parish Register and Tithing Book of Thomas Hassall of Amwell.

As well as wandering around churchyards getting muddy knees while taking pictures of snowdrops I’ve also been knitting lots. I’m still working on some new patterns and although progress is slow it is steady and I’m pleased with how things are shaping up. I’ve also been busy knitting up bunny cosies for Easter. Hopefully this little batch of heads will have some cosy bodies soon and I have an idea of a little pattern adaptation that I’ll be back to share with you soon. Til then I’m going to tuck them safely back into my lovely new project bag from The Wool Barn and go and start to think about Toby’s tea. See you soon, J x