It is 10am, the sun is shining and I’ve just taken the Heek for a walk wearing a tee-shirt because it is so mild, despite the cold and frosty night.

I walked through the church yard and over a little wooden plank bridge to a meadow and round, back to the far side of the castle. Along the way we were serenaded by birds singing their hearts out in the bushes and trees. A sparrow was collecting bits of dry grass and a blackbird carried twigs in his beak.

I saw snowdrops in whispering clusters under the yew trees, while random bunches of daffodils sprout everywhere, adding their cheerful yellow trumpets to the increasingly colourful graveyard.

It is half-term and children are out on bikes, playing in the grounds of the castle, their chirrupping voices similar to bird song and they too are wearing tee-shirts.

I wonder if summer will arrive in April?