The spring of spring

What a difference a week makes at this time of year, doesn't it?

Last week, I was moaning about the Beast from the East, and now we are turning the heating down and remarking on the mildness of the balmy air.

It's been lovely today. After a torrential downpour and thunderstorm that woke me up in the middle of the night, the skies cleared and we were treated to one of those mornings of stunning light and flossy clouds. To celebrate the turn in our climatic fortunes, Koos and I went for a walk. Our purpose was to go and visit a ram (predictably coined Rambo) that lives in a field some distance along the dyke on which the crumbly cottage is situated. This poor fellow is all on his own and I feel very sorry for him. He's a friendly creature and spends his days as close to the fence in his large field as possible. I think he just waits there for the next passer-by to stop and give him a bit of attention and scratch him under the chin.

I recently read that rams should not live alone, and I can't help noticing they they are isolated far too often. While I understand they cannot be left to run with the ewes all the time, they could easily be placed with wethers (castrated rams), or even with other animals. It seems wrong to keep such a herd creature alone and it's easy to see they crave the company.

Here's a couple of photos of Rambo communing with Koos:

I took some other photos of the pretty houses along our route. Being white and quaint, they looked especially attractive in the sunlight and I appreciated anew how lucky we are to have this lovely place to escape to.

I love this Cape Dutch style home. It's very pretty and has a
lovely big garden

View over the polder to the sea canal

The local B&B. Totally self contained cuteness

From its other equally pretty side

The main house; in other words the owners of the B&B
Same style of quaintness

Then of course, I couldn't resist a roofscape that begged to be captured with all its colours and uneven tiles:

Roofscape from the height of the dyke

And lastly, there were some other pretty things along the way of a livelier variety:

Isn't she a sweetie?

Breakast time

Altogether, it was a lovely walk on a gorgeous spring morning, and although it clouded over later, it gives me the feeling that the warmer weather is here at last.

Hoping you have a spring in your step too allemaal. Are signs of warmer days around in your world? Or cooler for my southern hemisphere friends?

PS: On the subject of sheep, my novel How to Breed Sheep, Geese and English Eccentrics is at a knockdown price of 99p/c on the US and UK Amazon sites this week; just if you need something to banish the winter blues once and for all :)