Sometimes – and sometimes more fittingly than we may care to observe… – Mother Nature schedules her tasks and happenings more fruitfully and frequently (and therefore with much more granularity) than simply the succession of seasons obvious to even the most imperceptive of eyes. Waking late, yesterday morning, my habitual appraisal of the front garden, and the youngish oak which stands sentinel over it, revealed a large selection of cleanly-broken twigs on the green verges beneath, scattered by the recent sharp winds (harbingers, it seems, of yet more of Winter’s cold, unforgiving, grasp; and its reluctance to depart – despite Spring puncturing the jackstrawn turf with the tiny xanthous blooms of narcissus and primrose; and the local finches’ songs, above, swelling with Summer warmth…).