After dismal weather since I got back from Canada my plans for summer travels in Greece are starting to take shape.  Flights booked and looking forward to Easter on Kalymnos, then another trip by bus and train from Athens around the Peloponnese and late summer in the Dodecanese.  With the equinox past, the anticipation of longer evenings and the prospect of better weather after the return to British Summer Time next weekend my mind was turning to getting some sun on my skin in preparation for Greek sunshine.  Warmth for the bones at last.

Then on Friday night winter returned.  Nowhere near as much snow in the south as in the North of Wales and England but woke on Saturday morning to a couple of inches of the fluffy white stuff, weighing down spring flowers desperately showing their heads after weeks in bud.  Perhaps distracted from their seasonal migration by the low cloud and dark grey sky, a growing flock of Siskins, somewhere between 80 and 100 I guess, landing in a silver birch in next door’s garden then in the blink of an eye departing en masse at some secret signal, swirling neurotically overhead before settling again for a few minutes in another tree, and then another, and another, finally returning to repeat the process.

Mignon daffodils on the balcony bowed down under snow

Flock of Siskins briefly at rest

…….. zooming in

I managed to escape up the mountain between the morning preparing food for the family and them arriving at the end of the afternoon.  Just a degree above freezing at the house it was freezing hard on the ridge-top, ice and snow sticking to walls and trees as well as on the ground.  The cloud was low on the flanks of the hill making for very flat light which creating stark outlines.

Dead oak tree on the flank of the ridge

Young beech wood.

Stile at the top of the field

Silhouetted against the sky close to the ridge-top

Snow blasted Folly Tower on the top of the ridge

…….. stone wall alongside the ridge path

Snow-blasted stile on the ridge

Then the temperature dropped and with no sign of the snow melting I went back up the mountain on Sunday.  It looks as if winter is back for at least a few days.  So it will be back up the mountain again Monday, maybe Tuesday.  Spring is on hold.