'What's wrong with our crocuses?'

... was what Tom asked when he saw I'd been photographing and posting other people's.

'I've photographed purple crocuses before'  I said with a shrug.

As if, like the Athenians, and all the strangers that were there, we can spend out time in nothing else but to tell or hear of some new thing.   As if spring hasn't been here before, and as if it doesn't knock us over every time.   But this year more than ever, I'm certain.  The crocuses are most particularly intense, I seem to see and hear of them everywhere, in the earth, in pictures, in the words and images of others.

And our purple crocuses ( I generally eschew Latin plurals, and 'croci' sounds very disagreeable) are looking rather fine, among the leaf litter and chestnut husks and shells of last year.

The hellebores don't look bad either,

and nor do the tiny daffodils, by next door's wall.

We've arrived, they all say, we said we would, what were you worrying about?  The others'll be along shortly, let the party begin...