It was a very pretty morning with lots of  lambs in striped sports socks trying out grazing for the first time and looking as though they decided that they preferred Mum!

Then just as we were turning into the woods, we heard our first Cuckoo of the season – almost exactly a year to the day from when we heard it last year.

I will say that cycling uses entirely different muscles to walking.  I get up and down Munros with no problem and I can walk 15 miles in an afternoon without thinking too much of it – but one steep hill on the bike and my legs were aching.  Something we need to work on I guess – we have an exercise bike we have never really used so that could be one for the long dark winter mornings.

I learned the poem below in school (though I don’t remember the line about goats farting being in it in those days).

Svmer is icumen in (Spring is here)
Lhude sing cuccu (The cuckoo sings loudly)
Groweþ sed (seeds grow)
and bloweþ med (and the meadows bloom)
and springþ þe wde nu (spring is in the woods)
Sing cuccu (Sing cuckoo!)

Awe bleteþ after lomb (The Ewe is bleating after her lamb)
lhouþ after calue cu (The cow lows for her calf)
Bulluc sterteþ (Bullocks stamp)
bucke uerteþ (Goats fart)

murie sing cuccu (Merrily the cuckoo sings)
Cuccu cuccu (Cuckoo, cuckoo)
Wel singes þu cuccu (You sing well cuckoo)
ne swik þu nauer nu (Don’t stop now)

Sing cuccu nu Sing cuccu. (Sing cuckoo, now sing cuckoo)
Sing cuccu Sing cuccu nu (Sing cuckoo, sing now cuckoo)

I don’t have a picture of a cuckoo unfortunately (they are a bit elusive) so I included one of the violets which have also arrived here this week.