Violets and song birds

We were wakened this morning by the first dawn chorus. Well, I wasn't out there recording it and comparing it to other mornings, but it was as if a few sleepy blackbirds had suddenly looked at the calendar and, op, 'hey it's first of March, tweet . . . bit rusty, but yep, I remember this.'
The snow has gone, just a few ragged lines of white on the 'Pic de Brau' which I hope doesn't mean we're in for more. Just lots for all the ski-hungry people keening for a 'piste' and heading out this morning to the Alps or the Pyrenees.
We did toy with the idea of skiing once, but it was quickly forgotten again in deference to a nice amble round some empty sea-side place instead, preferably with a café open . . .
Back to this morning: watched the news and was horribly depressed by such items as some poor man being tied to the back of a police van and dragged along the road in South Africa, subsequently to die in a cell later. Following that: the fact that crops are failing due to lack of bees - due to poisons being put on crops, hmm, didn't the developers of the products think of that ? They did? Oh, what you mean they don't care?

So to regain the bird-song euphoria, took the dogs out and was reminded again that spring if not exactly here now, will be soon.
The bank along the road is always covered in these delicate flowers for a month or so and it's always a joy to see their tiny heads each morning.
There are shops in Toulouse full of products made (allegedly) from violets. I went in one with Ezra once to buy some purple bonbons under nag-pressure; the smell in the shop took me right back to my grandma's bathroom - and herself: a pale hazy sweet smell: soap, chiffon scarves done up under her chin to keep the wind from deranging her new purple rinse and perm. Bingo and a packet of Player's No 6; thermos of tea and digestive biscuits on the beachfront on a tartan blanket.