February weather sayings + a book reading link

Today, February 2nd is Candlemas Day, a church festival which happens to coincide with the Celtic feast of Imbolc, a day to linked to lambing and new life.
There are many weather sayings for Feb and the best known is probably
February Fills The Dyke
Be it Black or Be it White

This year the dykes ( rivers/ditches/drains) are already full with plenty of black(rain) and no sign here of any white(snow). Half term week is sometimes very cold and snowy so we shall see what happens. Several rhymes tell farmers to check their stores because
In the barn on Candlemas Day 
Should be half the straw and half the hay
In other words there could be half the winter still to come.
And
If  Candlemas Day be fine and clear
Then half the winter's to come this year. 

At the beginning of January I did a list of what food of our own we have available so for the beginning of February this is the list
From Store - Beetroot, eating apples,cooking apples,onions,squash
From The Garden - Cabbage, Brussels sprouts, a little chard, parsley, parsnips,leeks and a few tiny swedes.( purple sprouting broccoli soon)
From The Freezer - Broad beans, sweetcorn, peppers, cooking apples, pears, gooseberries, small amounts of other fruit.
Jam and chutney - As Last Month see here
 

I started reading a new-to-me blog called The Quince Tree ( another lady called Sue- how common we are!) I'm not sure why I haven't added this lovely colourful blog to my reading list before. She has a link to another site- The Circle of Pines - Year of Books. 70 bloggers have linked into this so that means 70 new ideas for reading each month. Sue very kindly explained how to add the link onto my blog - over on the right. So I shall be doing a post  about my favourite book that I have read each month - although I think I might find it difficult to choose!

These are  the books that I brought home from the library van just after Christmas, so these are what I read in January.

My favourites were
James Oswald - Natural Causes, because this is a new author and well written crime.
Angela Thirkell - High Rising, because this is a reprint of a book from the 30's and is very witty.
Jacky Hyams - The bomb girls,  because this is the story of the girls who made munitions during WWII and something I had not read about before.

Below is the picture of library books brought home in January

   I have already read and enjoyed Love Nina by Nina Stibbe. This is non fiction and are letters written by Nina in the early 1980s when she was a Nanny in London. She writes to her sister in Leicestershire, very amusing letters about the children, their mother and the visitors to the house including the playwright Alan Bennett who lives close and comes around for supper quite often.
I've also read The Anne Perry and the Carola Dunn which are both new historical crime fiction in a series. Anne Perry writes well and seriously whereas Carola Dunn's books are much lighter slightly frothy books.
I've already picked up ideas for two other books to order from the library from the Year of Books link, which is good.

We have now had 2 sunny days in a row- good gracious, a rare event!