Suddenly everything is bursting into life. While geese, ducks and moorhens are busy guarding their nests on the Reserve a tide of green is seeping over the hedgerows. Pussy willow is out. The chiffchaffs have arrived from Africa and you can hear their distinctive notes, calling their own names, quite clearly, among the other bird cries. And our family of farm animals is growing too. Two dear ginger-spotty piglets have joined the gang in the Smallholding and another lamb was born last week. On the Black Swan pond, the Canada Geese and the swans have called a truce and have settled down to nest beside one another on the island. While their womenfolk are occupied, the males warily patrol the waters round them, all raucous displays of greeting and warning temporarily halted. In the folk mythology of Finland, Tuonela, the Underworld, is surrounded by waters which are guarded by a lone black swan. Black swans come from Australia so the 'Swan of Tuonela' was a piece of pure imagination on the part of Finland's pre-christian storytellers, but their tale inspired a haunting tone poem by Sibelius, and I cannot help hearing his music in my head as I see our miniature epic unfolding here.
Carpets of spring flowers are appearing now: primroses, violets, the beautiful oxlips, which have colonised a corner of the woodland coppice,
and mantles of wild garlic, and bluebells are close behind, while the blackthorn, crab apples and orchard fruit trees are only days away from breaking bud.
The winter tasks of fencing and clearing now over, Michael and his grandson Mike are hard at work, digging the Herb Garden, planting seeds and dragging off the old dried topgrowth of last year's herbs, which have provided winter shelter for lacewings and ladybirds and other friendly predators. 
There are plans for some turkeys to join the hens in the orchard. Already the Oxford Sandy and Black piglets have turfed up the grass in their pen and learnt that a snout is a good powerful tool for levering fences up high enough to escape into the world at large. They can run fast too! Michael was called out two days ago to catch them before they set to helping to dig the vegetable beds!
A week or so back we took delivery of two ponies, which Charlie Camp from Clayton made for us out of his locally grown chestnut wood, and they are now stationed close to the Indian Tepee and newly refurbished Wild West Fort in the Play Area, waiting for child adventurers to scramble on their backs. Charlie makes all manner of beautifully crafted items in wood, from wellie-racks to garden furniture and we are hoping to add his handiwork to the things for sale in our shop.
As the calligraphy exhibition comes down at the Visitor Centre, another goes up. This time our theme is Victorian England, to accompany the first in a new series of History Morning talks. Nick Scahill is coming up from Hove, for what he describes as a 'gallivant' through Victorian social history. His expertise with all things of the period, from magic lanterns to moustache wax is well recorded, so we are looking forward to a tour which promises to take in the Crystal Palace via Gilbert and Sullivan and a mechanical apple-peeler!
Next month we will receive the seeds which have been sent from the Indian Medicinal garden in Bhopal. Our early herbs, such as the lovely sweet cicely, are shooting up already in a foam of creamy flowers. Used for flavouring fruit pies and drinks, the fern-like leaves of sweet cicely add a delicate aniseed flavour and can be used as a replacement for sugar, while woodruff offers even finer delights. Steeped in white wine, a sprig of sweet woodruff produces the fragrant 'Maibowle', which is traditionally drunk in Germany on the 1st May. It is a delightful drink and is reputed to have given long life to Frederick the Great, who was something of an addict, so well worth a try!
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