This week I’ve been thinking about happiness.

I mention this because on Monday, at around about midday, I was suddenly aware of being happy. And it occurred to me that it’s not often that I am aware of happiness at the moment of feeling it.

Monday was one of those rare perfect days we sometimes get in early spring, when the sky is a clean clear blue, the temperature blissfully warm. I was in the greenhouse, seed sowing. The doors were open, the automatic vents in the roof had risen silently of their own accord as the warmth from the sun worked its magic; there was the smell of potting compost and fresh air. I was sitting on my new, very exciting seat/compost bin, bought for the princely sum of £14.93 from Amazon, scooping seed compost into pots from my new, very exciting potting tray also bought from Amazon for £12.95. And I was happy.

Monday was the day when broad beans were sown into root-trainers, aubergines and cucumbers and tomatoes were settled into their pots and put into the propagator on the windowsill, together with sunflower seeds for the cutting garden. Antirrhinum, papaver and nigella were scattered across trays of compost and covered with black plastic a la Sarah Raven. This time last year I was busy working on another garden so, with time for my own garden in short supply, I went down the plug plant route for my veg. And very good it was too. This year I’ve got a bit more time, and seeds hanging around from the year before, and I’m experimenting with a few different ways of germination on the basis that, as with so many garden tasks, there seem to be a number of different approaches, so it’s a suck-it-and-see situation. Messing around with these things on Monday made me happy.

Added to which, this week in the garden my new hamamelis is blooming.

The February Gold daffodils I planted a few years back are getting ready to live up to their names, the new bulbs I planted last year in the long grass of the field garden are appearing in their dozens, there are tulips showing their leaves in the cutting bed, hellebores by the drive.

Everything is stepping up a gear. More reasons to be happy.

Another day this week with more than its fair share of happy moments was Sunday, when I went to the Snowdrop Fair at Great Comp. I had thought the snowdrops in my garden were looking pretty darn good.

Until I saw the spectacular scenes in the wooded acres of this well known garden and nursery. Dysons Nurseries at Great Comp are famous for their salvias, but at this time of year it’s the snowdrops that are doing their spectacular thing. But more than the snowdrops, it was the great drifts of the spring snowflake, that took my breath away.

I hadn’t been aware of this particular Leocojum vernum with its delicate double bonnets.  I am now. Came home with a couple of plants to start them off in my own garden.

I also bought one snowdrop plant to put a bit of wind up the chaps back home and remind them not to be complacent. This is Galanthus ‘Mrs Thompson’ – which according to the label can have 3, 4 or even 5 ‘outers’, and increases well. Which as the sole representative of this particular plant in my garden it’s going to have to do!

I flirted with buying Galanthus Seagull, but the £20 the bulb cost wasn’t in my purse. Probably a good thing. I was getting carried away.

My other purchase was a stunning Helleborus x hybridus double. To go with my rather varied selection of hellebores in the bed by the drive.

Who couldn’t feel happy looking at this beauty!