Hello trees, hello sky, hello flowers

Some of the best news I've heard, well, today (it's only half nine so I suppose that's not saying much) is that we're going to have a spectacular spring. Now that the long, gloomy winter is over, doesn't that just cheer you up no end?

And I can feel it in the air – these last couple of weeks have been so much more wonderful than the miserable, cold, grey winter. The birds have suddenly appeared, and they're so loud I can even hear them over the traffic. In fact, I woke up early on Sunday morning and couldn't hear any traffic, just very loud birdsong. Even better, on Sunday afternoon I saw my first woodpecker this side of the Atlantic in a back garden in North London. And on Sunday night, a heron.

Unfortunately, spring has also brought an infestation of greenfly in our beautiful herb garden. I think it might have got in on a bunch of daffodils. When I looked at it last night it was absolutely covered in little white things which, on closer inspection, turned out to be hundreds, or maybe thousands, of baby flies as well as some grown-ups. Our previous infestation (of ladybirds) seems so jolly and nice by comparison – in fact, Sam says the ladybirds are our allies in fighting off greenfly. But there were only two ladybirds around yesterday (I had evicted the others the night before) so I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the greenfly. We've ended up hacking the whole thing down. It's gone. Dead. Finished. It was about time anyway – the roots had grown so big they were pushing the top of the plant up and the smaller plants (dill, thyme) just weren't getting a look-in at all. We did salvage the herbs themselves though – we've washed the parsley and basil, chopped it up and stuck it in the freezer. I just need to figure out what to do with the chilli peppers and maybe make some mojitos with the mint.

You may also like to know that Sam is staying with us, and although I haven't brought him for any outdoorsy exercise yet, he has still managed to injure himself outdoors by falling over on the trolley ramp by Sainsburys. His knee is all swollen and cut, and he's having a good time complaining about it which is the important thing.