And springth the wode nu

Translated from the Wessex dialect of Middle English that's "..and the wood is coming into leaf now". A boys' choir sings Sumer Is Icumen In at the climax of Benjamin Britten's Spring Symphony. This I know because I sung in such a choir as a schoolboy in Edinburgh in the early fifties... although my voice broke before the performance at the Usher Hall.

All very much beside the point on this first day of Central European Summer Time. I merely wish to obselrve that this year after our very mild winter in Munich the greening of the branches is well advanced. The more precocious trees are almost in full bloom, the more reticent showing only hesitant buds. But it does the heart good to see this miracle of nature just one more time.

It is also in marked contrast to last year when it was only at the end of April that I was able to report proper vernal greening.