Friday 29 January 2016

Too early for Spring

The end of January really is too early for Spring to start, but the Winter has been unusually mild so the plants don't know what to do. There are masses of Daffodils flowering already.


The Rhubarb definitely thinks it's time to start putting up new leaves.


This shy and nervous Song Thrush is perching on the container in which the Rhubarb is growing.


Crocuses are usually among the first flowers to appear in the Spring, so I'm not surprised to see these.


This is a Salvia Cardinalis, already producing some beautiful deep red leaves.


This is another sign of how mild and wet the Winter has been - moss growing around the base of one of my Bay trees.



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On a completely different note - have you noticed what Google has been doing about Followers of blogs? Anyone who follows a blog via software other than Google Friend Connect can no longer be counted as a Follower on a blog hosted by Blogger. My numbers have gone down by about 30. Rumour has it that before long you won't even be able to leave a comment on a Blogger blog if you are not a Google subscriber. Why are they doing this? What is the point of such protectionism? I thought the Social Media were supposed to promote socialising.... :(

4 comments:

  1. I've just posted about the follower issue - I think there is a different method you can use for comments which I may look into if this becomes a problem. Blogger is just taking advantage!

    We have our first tete a tete daffodils out but that is all.

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  2. My drives to work in the morning are in the dark and when I get home its dark, but yesterday I was home and got the bus into town and I was so surprised to see the road sides covered in masses of flowering daffodils - such a shame so early.

    Re the Blogger follower issue, yes I noted too. I was nearing 1200 and lost loads, but I am more concerned about people not being able to comment, I LOVE comments and engaging with bloggers -

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  3. All of my beds are tucked under a nice layer of snow right now - which suits me just fine. We are still a couple of months from spring and if things start to thaw out too early, it usually means trouble.

    As for blogger - well, that's not good. If their goal is to get more people using Google, limiting what you can do and what platform followers use to comment is a sure fire way to do just the opposite.

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  4. Great photo's Mark, especially the song thrush.
    It is wonderful to see signs of spring... I really need them, but I do wonder if it will end in tears. Storm Gertrude came and vented her anger on us and we even had snow flurries this morning. Thankfully it didn't stick.

    I'm really annoyed with Google. I know it's free so we can't really have a say, although I am toying with the idea of changing to my own website. Confusing to readers I know, but others have done it and I'd feel more in control.
    Thankfully I only lost 5 followers, but when I lost them I did wonder why.
    Had I offended them, was it because I wasn't writing certain kinds of posts etc. It's great to get new followers, happy dance included (or is that just me?) so really disappointed with Google. Why 'fix' something that ain't broke?
    I must just add that I have been visiting you regularly, even though I haven't commented lately.
    Enjoy your weekend

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