Well this weekend (10th February) it has felt as if Spring has arrived. Lovely sunny days, a touch of chilly wind at times, but when that drops it felt warm. Our guests today used the lovely weather to cycle the Strawberry Line cycle track to Yatton and back. 
For us though it was a great moment to spend some days in the garden getting on with all those jobs before everything starts growing too fast to keep in check. Working out there with all the birds around is wonderful. The noisy and very tame blackbirds, some of whom are good mimics. And we have a few robins, one of which is very happy to come right up when we are working, mostly out to find the odd tasty morsel, but at times seemingly happy to just watch us work. It feels like we are his entertainment. Yet he sings to us in return so it is a very balanced relationship!

After the torrential rain and flooding in Somerset last November the lovely road through the gorge was closed. The power of water flooding out of the ravines and gullys broke up the edges of the tarmac, and strewed rubble all over the place. The road down by the shops and cafes and the caves was fine, it was further up in the wilder parts of the gorge that the problems lay.
The rubble was cleared up quickly and at first some cheeky locals just drove around the barriers and used the road as normal, but now that has stopped. And yet over two months later it is still closed. Why? Well because, amazingly, the water from the Mendips continues to stream down the sides of the road, and until it dries up they cannot fix things. It says a lot about how wet it was and remained for those months. Hopefully now with dryer weather here it will all come good.
Remember, despite some inaccurate alarmist news, the lower gorge with all the visitor attractions is open for business as usual.
This does mean that for those wanting to arrive at the cottage from the North via the gorge, you should check with us before you set off to see if it is still closed. There are some fun detours through smaller lanes that you can take, or maybe just keep to the main 'A' route through Wells, or from the A38 from Bristol/M5. We'll post another blog when all is good.
There is a big up side from of all of this: the beauty of the gorge can for a short while be appreciated on foot in a car free environment.