On 2 Feb, 07:48, "Dave Poole" wrote:
Billowing masses of bright canary yellow from the Acacia trees
(Mimosa)

(Snip)

It is widely planted along the French
Riviera, but does equally as well here along the south coast. On a
grey winter's day, they certainly help make up for absent sunshine.

They are my childhood scent ) Last week end in Bordeaux, in our
garden in Capeyron, they were all in flower, some more than others,
but sadly under a mass of frozen hard snow. (I built some sort of
igloo wiht the kids, just imagine).We've lost lots of branches from a
couple of trees (we've got 5). My aunt in Perigueux had to fell a red
cedar, est. at around 150 years old and well over 20 oaks trees for
fear of another harsh weather especially hight strong wind. I think
it's evident things are changing. I don't find it a terrible thing,
just that we really need to start adapting to this warmer and for us
in England, impredictable weather more than ever.

Over the next few days we are due for another spate of cooler weather,
but it will have to be very cold over a prolonged period to prevent
this winter from being one of the mildest on record.

It feels like my childhood in Bx - very mild autumn, sliping into
windy winter where we saw snow once in 1977. I've been ringing home
every sunday for years and for the last 3/4 years we have had a
similar weather. It's uncany.