Spring has at last come - and most snow has gone.

I got the next sock pattern - Dangerous Turns - on Friday, so did quite a bit of work on it over the weekend. It's the funniest-looking thing! It's toe-up, and also cabled, so it is very long and flat. I've noticed this with toe-ups before. You don't notice how long and flat a toe is when it's at the end of your knitting - unless perhaps it's one of those long, long size 13 ones (hi, Jeremy!). Anyway, I have a few more cabled rows and then I'll do a few rows of rib and then Jeny's Amazingly Stretchy Bind Off. I must have a little look at it on YouTube because I can't remember it. The heel on this sock is interesting too - you do a M1L and M1R on either side of the sole stitches and that forms the gusset, and then you just do short rows and that forms the heel - turn and all. Cool. And now that I've had plenty of practice on the M1's, I should be able to get back to the Thistle Shawl KAL and do a better job of it. More of that later.
Yesterday I went to Vesey's at noon and got some seeds for starting tomatoes, onions and leeks. I have to pick up some potting soil too. The Beechgrove Garden folks just sprinkled the leeks on the top of a big pot and then pricked them out from there. I could do that. The cool thing they have is a seed starter with many tiny, tiny cells - each maybe 2 cm. square. They can then move the tiny plants to bigger pots complete with the contents of the cells, so no root disturbance. I want! But I haven't seen them anywhere. Only thing that comes close are those party ice cube trays from the $$ store, but they are tiny - only a dozen or so cells per tray. I'm not sure if they are flexible enough, either. I may have to give it a try, though.
In looking at our garden on the weekend I found my white tree peony broken off - Fred thinks if I stake and tie it up, it will survive. I staked but didn't tie it yet. The other two are fine. There were a few tiny rose bushes snapped off too, as well as a cedar in the front which had lost quite a few branches. The snow just pulled them down as it melted. We found quite a few crocus - the really tiny ones, which are spreading quite well. No sign of the bigger ones in the secret garden. The daffs down by the road are poking up as well.
It's just last year we were in Ireland - we keep remembering what we were doing one year ago. Emily's birthday was more exciting last year, I think Irish breakfast in Galway, dinner at a Spanish restaurant in Dublin - but she did get to go to the NDP Policy announcement this year. Life's little compensations.