Beautiful Blooms:  1st of April, and the cherries are in full bloom.  Its amazing how much blossom the tiny trees have on them....fingers crossed for the next few weeks to see will we have successful pollination and fruit set.  The strawberries are just about starting to flower right now as well.  At the same time, the quince tree, which is beautifully bedeckt in flower buds, has just started blooming.  Surprisingly, the pear trees in the orchard have just started flowering as well.  I'm a little uneasy about them being in bloom so early, because of the risk of bad weather preventing the flowers setting properly, but there is, at least, a very promising show of flowers.

Temple Bar Archaeology:  It has emerged that during the digging at Meeting House Square in Temple Bar, some significant and interesting archaelogical finds have been made.  This has meant that we will probably be staying several months longer up in Cow's Lane.  This actually suits us fine, as it is a lovely location with a pleasant ambience, and trade is pretty good for us up there.

Amazing weather:  We have had some fantastic weather in April this year, and this can only do good to the fruit trees in bloom this month.  There is plenty of bee activity, and by the end of the month it looks promising for a good set of little fruit-lets on the pear trees. It's a little too soon however to be counting chickens, as a snap of cold miserable weather can cause the young fruit to drop off the trees.  In the polytunnel, by the end of the month now the strawberries are a mass of promising bloom, and our first crop of little cherries is swelling now to pea-sized fruits.