Country diary: Fresh primroses and the first bluebells | Virginia Spiers

St Dominic, Tamar Valley, Cornwall: Rainstorms have been dominant here, but flowers are emerging through the ferns and leaf mouldA rare dry day allows a four-hour walk, from home to Calstock and back. Among the greenery and shorn woody growth of hedge banks are bedraggled daffodils, once thrown out from former market gardens. Verges along the lanes are rutted with tractor wheels; bright drifts of ramsons and dog's mercury thrive above the mud, and there are fresh primroses and tarnished celandines on sheltered banks.There's no stock out on the soggy pastures, apart from small flocks of pregnant ewes and horses at livery in hoof-trodden paddocks. In the recent violent storm, a horse was killed by unexpected lightning, which also damaged phone connections across the parish. Continue reading...