February Weather--Typically English

Sun and wind and cold, followed by rain and wind and cold. Repeat this weather pattern about twenty times more and you've got the month of February all wrapped up, here in Northern Virginia.  Oh, these raw days are enough to make me look forward to the changing of the monthly guard, which is March, another cold, rainy and raw month. I think even the devil deer are tired of it all, too! Where am I, in England?  It seems as though even the Philadelphia Flower Show, starting next week, has their GPS set for Great Britain as well with an English theme, this year.

But, how long do I have to wait for daffodils to bloom, pretty pansies to pop and creeping phlox to start creeping again, outside?  This February weather has been blah enough and, with the sudden demise of Matthew in the season finale of Downton Abbey, even more blah.  It has taken me a week to get over that, as best I can--poor Mary!  What in heaven's name was that Julian Fellows fellow thinking, letting Matthew drive so carelessly, on those winding English country roads, anyway??

In spite of my February doldrums, the pussy willow harvest was completed this weekend here at Blooming Hill and P. Lorenz (a.k.a. Peter) took time off from his winter project of renovating the upstairs bathrooms (like we don't already have enough to do around here) to create a few of his signature pussy willow wreaths for spring.  Where is that spring, anyway?  Did I already ask that?  To coin a Martha Stewart saying, the closing of the books on this February, "is a GOOD thing."

Yet, as I write this, there is a robin singing in the yard, the first I've seen and heard this year and, a couple of cardinals are greeting his arrival, as only good neighbors should.  Perhaps I shall brew a cup of lavender tea, add a little honey and channel Queen Elizabeth I as that is, perhaps, what she would do, according to tea legend and English history.  I'll just have to endure this weather, waiting for spring to finally make her entrance--probably all of the way from England--somewhere, sometime soon.