April showers?

Actually no.  Although the forecast for  today was showers from lunchtime onwards, and the sky was black all around us, nothing happened.  I went shopping early - by early I mean 10 o'clock as nothing much happens around here before then - and  it was cloudy and sunny but cool.  The clouds got darker and darker, later on some friends dropped in on their way home from the shops and stayed for lunch, when next we looked out of the window  the clouds had joined up from the south and the north  but still it didn't rain. 

This is  typical of the time of year, as in it's very unpredictable.  One day hot, one day breezy, one day cloudy and sunny......but we do need some rain.  The locals will tell you that this isn't normal, but after 8 years plus here, we know there is no such thing as normal weather.  Every year has had it's hot dry Springs, cold wet Springs, dry winters, very very wet road-collapsing winters.....some may say it's global warming, some call it climate change.  Whatever the reason, no year has been the same.

But the fuente continues to run, the deposito here in Montenegro is always full of water for those who need to water their vegetables and land,  we have full tanks to water our broad beans, peas, lettuces and herbs.  The strawberries don't need water as yet, some are flowering but it's not really fruiting time yet.  The one raspberry cane that we were given last year (? or the year summer before?....   doesn't time fly!)   has now produced 12 shoots so we should get a good crop of fruit this autumn.  Our pear tree has bloomed and now the petals are dropping off, hopefully we'll get a good crop of fruit again.  I don't think the almond in the side garden has made any almonds - it was in full bloom during the -8's of February and I can't see any nuts on it at all.  Some of the trees have got nuts, it must be a particular type that happened  to flower during the ultra-cold week that has been affected.