First butterfly I've seen this year. This is quite early to see a Red Admiral- they migrate from North Africa and the continent during spring and summer. Butterfly Conservation notes "There is an indication that numbers have increased in recent years and that overwintering has occurred in the far south of England".

 I suspect this one has indeed overwintered. The wing edges are rather raggedy which is characteristic of butterflies late in the season. And this one was decidedly sleepy, basking in the sun and not flitting away as I drew closer. Seen in Hitchin, Hertfordshire which is not that far south.

 

  We are having a particularly good spring for blossom which in March is mainly species in the Prunus genus. I don't know what variety of Plum this is but I know exactly what the plums will taste like. 

 A plum tree grew in our garden as a child, laden every summer with delicious fruit. As the years went by it slowly succumbed to age until only a hollow stump remained. Eventually that too fell over. But the root stock lived on and a decade or two later a spindly sapling appeared which prospered.

 One summer's day I noticed it bore a few plums and I plucked one. To my astonishment the taste and texture took me back in time and for that moment I was a child again. 

Feeling vernal: today is the Spring Equinox.

 

On a train to London, I want to be walking in those fields, hills and woods.

 

 Right plant, wrong place. I spotted the rosettes of five Ornopordum acanthum self-seeded behind one of the buildings at the music school. Not a prominent spot for this tall, architectural biennial which is worthy of a place in any herbaceous border. Sometimes called the Scotch Thistle or the Cotton Thistle it can grow up to three metres with vivid purple thistle-like flower heads.

 So I carefully dug them up, teasing the tap root out of the soil and replanted them in a mixed border among ornamental grasses. I notice the Beth Chatto nursery is selling O. acanthum at £10.90 a pot so that would be fifty quid's worth! 

 Here is some of the good stuff. Lovely loamy, crumbly, well-rotted compost. About two years old, a mixture of garden 'waste' and kitchen scraps. 

 

 An annual ritual. I hard prune the enormous Fig tree (planted by my father several decades ago). Then I put the branches through the shredder which produces several barrow loads of wood chip. I wheel them down to the allotment and mulch the Rhubarb patch. Locally sourced, zero air miles!