This is the mouth of the River Lea where it joins the Thames in East London. I intend to walk the length of it in several sections from here back to its source in the chalk hills of the Chilterns (about 42 miles/68 km in total).
 I began this undertaking by walking from my home in New Cross Gate to Greenwich. There I crossed under the Thames using the foot tunnel then skirted round the Isle of Dogs to Leamouth, also known as Bow Creek.

  

 The buds are budding. The wheel of the year turns.

 The Snowdrops are well on their way; the garden is filled with flowers once more.

 I sometimes refer to "native" and "naturalised" plants in this diary. Last week I posted a number of entries concerning various plants I saw within about a mile or so of each other in Hertfordshire.
 The first plant I noted (above) was Lords and Ladies aka Cuckoo Pint (Arum maculatum) which is native- a truly wild flower of woods, hedgerows and shady places.

 Common Gorse (Ulex europeus) is native. Grows wild, sometimes cultivated for various purposes e.g. for hedging and landscaping.

 Winter Heliotrope (Petasites fragrans). Non-native, a naturalised garden escape of North African/Mediterranean origins. Richard Mabey states in 'Flora Britanica' that it was introduced to the UK in 1806 though he doesn't mention his source for this date.

 The Common Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) might be native, might be an introduction. There is a plausible theory that it came to these shores in Norman times when planted in monastic grounds as a symbol of purity coinciding with Candlemas. Certainly various Galanthus species have been grown in gardens across the ages and will have spread.
 Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) is undoubtedly an introduction being of southern European climes but it has naturalised here and there in the UK.

 Stinking Hellebore (Helleborus foetidus). Native but also cultivated as a garden plant; so it can occur as both an indigenous wild thing and a naturalised escape.

 "Native" plants are generally considered to be those that existed here after the ice age ended (about 11,700 years ago) and before rising sea levels separated the land mass from the continent (around 8,500 years ago). It's a fascinating history but then again does it alter my appreciation of Snowdrops if they were here ten thousand years ago or only a thousand?
 It becomes contentious I suppose in the case of more recent arrivals. We no longer take the Victorian view that Japanese Knotweed is suitable for the shrubbery. We generally like Buddleia but sometimes regard its invasiveness as a problem. The jury is out on a plant like Himalayan Balsam which may or may not be a threat to native habitats, ecologists differ on that point.
 Anyway, even a short walk in the countryside makes it evident that the flora of Britain has been millennia in the making.

 Common Gorse (Ulex europeus) is a tough shrub of rough places. It flowers early and flowers long- from late winter through to midsummer.

 Here is some good wholesome stuff: alpaca dung. My father purchased eight sacks of it from a lady on a market stall who keeps a small herd of them. Too much muck too fresh can have an adverse effect on the soil so I let it sit in the bags for a number of weeks (it doesn't smell!). Then I've been spreading it thinly on the allotment as a winter mulch.
 It takes the form of pellets (rather like sheeps' droppings) which seem to take weeks and weeks to decompose. That's a good thing because the nutrients will filter into the soil slowly. I have high hopes for the efficacy of free range organic alpaca poo... 

 Walking alongside a stretch of woodland in Hertfordshire my eye was drawn to an almost luminous green among the deep browns of the leaf litter. This fine stand of Stinking Hellebore (Helleborus foetidus) was coming into flower.
 Woods and scrub on calcerous soil are the characteristic habitat of H. foetidus (as is the case here) though I don't recall seeing any in this particular locale before.