April is the cruellest month

It’s been a slow, slow spring. The cold east wind and the snow have proved a death knell to many lambs, disheartening for the local farmers and stretching their resourcefulness to the limit. The cold weather may be responsible for the dead puffins and guillemots coming ashore.  Maybe the sand eels are not there for feeding.  It bodes ill for the breeding season.

The wind has swung round an airt to the south and temperatures have risen but only with the loss of the drying effect of the wind as more rain comes in from the Atlantic.

Species are resilient however and the primroses and coltsfoot – what is the plural?  coltsfeet? -  are blooming on the sea braes and even a brave cowslip was testing the force of the blast.     

Scurvy grass is out.    Full of vitamin C it is, as its name suggests, a good anti-scorbutic and was used well into the nineteenth century until the availability of citrus fruits made it redundant.

It has a peppery taste more powerful than the rest of its crucifer cousins and would make a piquant addition to a salad but, despite W.S.’s  submission that names don’t matter and roses smell just as sweet etc., a menu with  “ garnished with scurvy grass” doesn’t have quite the same ring as with “rocket and watercress”. 

 Scurvy grass’s time in the limelight is past, replaced by a fizzy tablet

The celandine is in flower. Named after the swallow with whose arrival it is supposed to coincide; it is always earlier than those delightful harbingers of summer.  None are here yet but within a week they will come swooping in, helped by the southerly winds.   It is indeed an ill wind that blows no good.

While the swallows haven’t arrived yet, the goldeneye should be left for the north.  A pair on a local river must think it’s still winter.  An easy mistake to make.   Some do breed in Scotland, but in the Highlands, not here….or perhaps they are going to start.   Why fly off to Russia when you can enjoy the same weather here