Made it.

Our measure of a mild winter is whether the Helleborus niger flowers open before the end of January. They have. It is commonly called the Christmas Rose and in some milder parts of the country they probably open for Christmas.
Hellebores do very well round here and we will soon have several different colours. But the white ones are always first.

My extra is a bit of fun.
Many of you will know that every day after breakfast we do ten minutes of Tai Chi following a YouTube video.
Mrs. K. has now added another daily exercise which she tells me is good for my balance. It simply consists of throwing and catching this lightweight orange ball 25 times. Maybe in Summer we shall do it out in the garden.
Throwing it and taking the shot at the same time was quite tricky.