pollen

Until today I didn’t know what catkins were because I never looked them up. “A catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster (a spike), with inconspicuous or no petals…” according to Wikipedia. They are out at the moment and I know this is unusual because a few days ago I saw an article about how it was unusual to have pollen warnings at this time of year. The Swiss weather app shows that there is a lot of pollen.

In Austria, there’s a pollen warning. Apparently the lack of frost has encouraged the trees and other plants to begin releasing pollen. That’s quite amusing. We have the same temperatures in central Europe as you’d expect to have down in the south Israel has seen snow but the resorts can’t open because of the lack. Where is winter? Is it hiding in the south? Should people go on skiing holidays with their bikes and hiking boots rather than snowboards and skies?