97. Very early April again. For two weeks in March the thermometer reached daytime temperatures of 26 degrees. But the skies are grey and sodden now. 10 degress it is outside. The cuckoos call, the first few swallows arrived on the 25th. March and today, in the blanket of drizzle I see a hoopoe in twirly flight. It moves as if tethered by some invisible thread to something more fixed. It flutters and pauses, twists on and back showing off its blacks and whites.
Tractors lug manure to the fields and new calves are out in the yards.

Talk is of a theft in the nearbye village, an opportunist sort of one when the householder disturbs the intruder and nothing is taken. Heads nod and shake and if the police are mentioned there is a cackle of derision. I hear this story over several days but can get no further or interesting information. I lock my back door slowly and carefully before I go out for a short walk. This is the first time I have bothered to do this.