Cover by Micky Thompson 

The cover picture for this the Spring issue, was taken mid-April last year as you can see, of a clump of bluebells in St Lawrence’s churchyard.  As I write this in early February the snowdrops have been up for ages, so I expect this years bluebells won’t be far away either. I say bluebells, as you can see some of them are white. No one seems to know why they turn that shade other than it’s genetic, but the churchyard ones seem to be the Spanish variety, so maybe that’s it. Traditionally, the ancient woodlands with our native bluebells flower early to take advantage of the light, before the canopy of sprouting  tree leaves blocks out most of the sunshine. It was thought that the Spanish bluebell, imported by the Victorians, would decimate our native variety through hybridization, but recent research has shown however that our variety has the advantage being more prolific, so it would appear that our glorious springtime spectacle is safe. So it’s off to West Woods, South of Marlborough again, where most of them are still blue.