Life is bursting out in nests and flowerbeds

BRIGHT days at last, and celandines, the first of the spring wild flowers, open their golden petals to the sun.

Like small buttercups, they shine as if varnished amongst their heart-shaped leaves.

For a fortnight or so, they have been flowering in the local woods, leggy stems lifting the flower heads over the ground ivy, but they were almost always half-closed, as is their habit when there is darkness, cloud or rain. However, this morning the sun was bright in a cloudless sky, and the celandine glittered like newly-minted sovereigns dropped on a bed of green.