Can’t beat that well-mulched stuff

I read recently in a Dublin-based newspaper that, “Winter is now almost at an end.”

While winter is defined as the time between December 1 and the last day of February, I suspect the writer may need to curtail their enthusiasm after much of Europe shivered in a Siberian deep freeze for the last week.

In defence of that writer, I did find myself listening to early morning bird song two Sundays ago. And the evidence of our temperate winter of 2011/12 is to be seen in every green, growing field of grass.