Harbingers of Spring

We're in that mucky time of year where you can go from plus 18 degrees Celsius to minus 4 in 24 hours, when everything has gone from being boring brown to being boring grey.  But!  There are two things about this time of year that can't be duplicated.  One is the wonderful scratchy scrunch sound your shoes (shoes!  no boots!) make on all that tiny gravel that has somehow made its way to roadsides.  I love that sound; for some reason it makes me think of childhood, of playing marbles and sketching out hopscotch boxes for the first time in years.  Wonderful noise.

The second thing is in one word:  snowdrops.  What a beautiful, vulnerable creation.