Wow, a month and a day passed since my last posting… and winter turned into spring.

After returning from the USA and Canada last summer, I often replied to questions about our vacation that I loved the area we traveled to, but that we’d seen more snow in Canada in July than we had had during the past two winters here in our German Mittelgebirge. Well, it seems like this winter was out to prove me wrong. We had snow several times, for several days or even weeks at a time, and it was a lot more snow than we had during the past two winters. The first snow came in November, and the last bist was just a short while ago.

Yesterday and today were the first days that felt like spring. It was decidedly warmer than before, and even sunny. The crocuses in our garden were blooming, and the air smelled like spring. André and I went for a walk (not a very long one because I am battling a stubborn bout of sinusitis at the moment) today and enjoyed every bit of it even though it was quite windy on top of the hills. It was really great to see the catkins on trees and bushes and others signs of spring. Also, I saw a red kite for the first time since they moved south for the winter. (Take a look at the great photo on Wikipedia!)

Last year we had snow as late as Easter, so we’ll see how long the spring weather holds (it started to rain tonight), but the longer days and better weather do much to improve my mood. Now if only there weren’t four very busy weeks with a lot of work between now and the Easter holidays… I’m already looking forward to a couple of weeks off from school.

André took some photos today, but hasn’t uploaded them yet, so here’s one he took last year.