Can I smell gas, or is it me?

I never thought I would ever murmur "Mmm, five degree centigrade. Nice", but the snow is melting in an efficient non-foggy/slushy sort of way, and the brown grass is peeking through. Unfortunately this is uncovering my guilty little secret of approximately 27 bags of leaves I neglected to rake-up pre-snow-fall. They have now degraded to create one enormous matted carpet, which makes me swear under my breath to Do Better next time. Or just to swear.

On the other hand, it meant that whilst I was out I smelt a gas-leak. When I mentioned it to John, he nodded wisely and said "Yes, a passer-by said the same thing the other night". Anyway - I called the gas people up, and they sent someone round within ten minutes. His "nose" couldn't detect anything, but his actual nose could, so he called out the emergency team. I had great confidence in all this activity right up to the moment one of these "Best of the Best" stubbed out his ciggie in the middle of the road.

None of them accepted the offer of a cup of tea. Odd.

They were there all day today, and although I was concerned they were going to dig up Jerry's pristine bowling lawn opposite, they dug a hole between me and my neighbour's, and carefully re-raked all the leaves back over the in-fill.

And this morning we saw a deer at the bottom of our road.

Truly spring is here (until the next snow-fall).