Spring comes early in France

The first flower bed, alongside the river

We 've had three weeks away in France at Le Buget [known familiarly as 'Buggit'], our house in the Auvergne.  We had some wonderful weather and managed to do a lot of work on the 'garden'  - though it is still more like a building site, we managed to create our first flower bed and to fill it with 'bits' from a friend's herb garden.

Le Buget
- the garden with the old well and a corner of the woodshed

We found time for some lovely walks and enjoyed the spring flowers in the woods on the banks of the two major rivers of the region, La Sioule and La Bouble. 

Weir on the River Sioule

 Most dramatic were the sheets of Snowdrops, Wood Anemones and Corydalis solida, or Bird-in-a-bush, which I had never seen in the wild before, although Stace says it is introduced-naturalised, scattered in woods and hedges in Britain.

Corydalis solida

 The woods along the Sioule were blue with the flowers of Scilla bifolia, but the camera really couldn't manage their wonderfully intense sky-blue colour.

                                                       Scilla bifolia