And every spring we study the boughs of the two giants daily for the first sign of leaf. All has been well, although we weren't entirely convinced it was an accurate measure of the impending summer's forecast, until we discovered another rhyme which read:
'If the Ash before the Oak doth sprout
There has been or there will be, drought.'
Which contradicts the original verse and seems as if the author of the second hadn't found the first leaf to be a very reliable indication either!
Anyway we have scanned the trees for the minutest sign and found it to be, without any shade of a doubt --- the Oak that is the winner! We have decided therefore to keep with the first rhyme and hope that we have a nice dry (but not too dry) summer! Sylvia x