Monday 17th February 2025 - An Improvement, Cuttlefish and Borrowed Days

I have ticked everything off my winter ‘to do’ list; this has given me a great feeling of satisfaction.  A definite improvement in the weather today.  Still very cold, between 2-3°C, with a sharp easterly wind but the sun has graced us with its presence.  Having already filled the pots, I pricked out the seedlings from the second sowing of tomato seeds this morning, while sat in the sun on a bench at the end of our garden.  We now have twenty plants in total, so no problem if some fail.  Much too cold for them to be in the greenhouse, the plants will stay in the conservatory for a few weeks.  While sat on the bench, as well as hearing the birds singing and a bee buzzing nearby, I heard a fluttering.  This was a butterfly, the first I have seen this year.  Not staying to rest for positive identification, I judge by its size this was a peacock or red admiral, out from hibernation. Before going back indoors, I hooked some of the blanket weed out of the pond, leaving this on one side so anything living in the weed can find its way back into the water.  Right at the bottom, I could see a frog – it won’t be too long before the males will start serenading the females.  I also checked the borders and discovered the first camelia bloom (see photo below).  Not as flamboyant as the flowers on our other two bushes but definitely welcome in our garden.  It may be cold but I could see shoots starting to burst, the bulbs are growing with snowdrops in bloom and the crocus not far behind them.

Walking on the promenade this morning we couldn’t help but notice areas strewn with cuttlefish bones.  We used to see them when we walked along the beach with Barney, our dog, but haven’t seen any for some time and certainly never in these numbers.  Peter has been looking on the internet to find out more about these creatures, which are truly fascinating.  Amongst other interesting facts, he discovered they usually live for around two years.  With this in mind you would expect the bones to be from cuttlefish that had reached the end of their lives and would therefore all be about the same size.  This is not the case with those on the promenade, which vary greatly in width and length.  It doesn’t seem unreasonable to conclude, something killed these cuttlefish, both young and mature.  Could it be a marine pollutant that resulted in their demise?

I watch Danni in the Wild’s vlogs.  Her YouTube films always provide me with some additional knowledge, in particular about fungi.  In her latest post she talks about, what are termed as ‘borrowed days in February’.  This is folklore which covers the period between 12th and 14th February; these were traditionally said to be borrowed from January.  If these days are stormy then the year will be favoured with good weather but if fine, the year’s weather will be foul.  This year, those days were not exactly stormy but they were pretty grey and not pleasant, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed, maybe this is a sign we will have a decent summer this year.  Goodness only knows, we deserve a good one, after the summers of 2023 and 2024!