is he Scottish?

21.1c (70F) has been breached for the first time this year in the Polytunnel. The last time this temperature was breached was back in early November.

The Primulas and tulips are coming along very nicely after more in the way of sunshine in the last week. 

That's warming to hear. Interestingly, the sun now is as high as the middle of October; it has the strength in itself at that height to lift outdoor shade temps to the 20s C, but on the other side of the year, when advection, SSTs, 850s, soil temps (etc etc I know) contribute more. But still a nice thought!

Travelling to work in the morning and the sun is already up and well-hatted  Problem is I can't get away with singing enthusiastically in the car now as people can see me! 

Cutting the grass round here too,

I always wondered what you looked like

Meantime, the solar spring is well underway here with my 15 panels generating 10KwH today, and it wasn't that sunny.

Blackthorn first seen out today, at Shoreham-0n-Sea - a fortnight earlier than I've previously recorded it. (The similar cherry plum was out on roadsides around here a week or more ago)

Absolutely right; in fact, today marks the start of the middle of solar spring. The sun's height roughly equates to that on 5th October.

Daffodils still not out here yet, we have some February Gold variety by a south-facing wall which do sometimes make it by the last few days of Feb - but still need a week I think. That will be pretty much average timing.
I found it hard to believe on Gardeners World they had daffodils already mainly finished.
(not sure where that is)

Dafs come in flushes with the last flushes in flower back home at the moment, and the earlier ones are now dead or dying. 

Bluebells are not far off flowering now.. though some early verities have been in flower for weeks.

Meanwhile in balmy (er) Hampshire, my woodland bank (part of the garden) is flush with celandines, anemones, primroses, violets, shooting ramsons and buds on bluebells and red camion.

having only arriving up here yesterday from the balmy(er) Hampshire I can totally say it's like another country up here 😄

I might have a look for some winter mushrooms whilst up here.. like delicious velvet shanks

Gosh - the way 'picturesareme' goes on about the climate of Portsmouth, you'd think he hails from the sunny shores of the Costa del Sol, and not a very cloudy and damp coastal British climate. 

Erm excuse me but it's not just me 😋

Being jealous of the climate of the south coast of England, when you live in Aberdeen, is like having breast cancer and being jealous of someone with malignant melanoma - they're both shitty at the end of the day - just varying degrees of shitty-ness. 

Re. Sun strength/ energy output comparing the southcoast to Aberdeen is like comparing the south coast to northern Spain/ southern France. Heck the latitude difference of Reykjavik & Aberdeen is pretty much the same as that of Aberdeen & Portsmouth 😃

Now the types of weather we experience.. Well if I wanted regular winter snow then Aberdeen would be a good city to go to, but if it was sunny weather then anywhere along the southcoast would be the best place.. Most locations seeing close to 2000 hours annually.

For Leeds well you get an extra 69 days of rain compared to Portsmouth. 😋😋

It's a valid point you make about Aberdeen: Aboyne. Solent is out in Southampton Water; the sea breeze up from Spithead is notorious there- with the sea temp only around 15C or so at the start of July. So much so that in the past, when there were 2 recording stations in Southampton run by the MetO (Mayflower Park and Weather Centre roof) there could be as much as a 3C difference in S, SE or SW winds or very light winds in anticyclonic conditions, and these stations were both on land.  Since the end of their recordings in 2000 the Solent station has never delivered the goods as far as max summer temperatures are concerned. This station is not representative of land conditions in CS England.

You definitely won't.. the closest Met Office station to Leeds gets 114 days of rain a year on average. Does Portsmouth get 69 fewer days of rain than that? I doubt it. 

You southerners have a real penchant for exaggerating the differences between here and there - when nine times out of ten there is hardly any difference at all. The only thing going for Portsmouth is the higher sunshine hours - summer daily max temps are pretty similar, ditto rainfall. When comparing Leeds to inland cities like London, the difference is even less - sunshine and rainfall are virtually identical. 

The UK probably has some of the smallest differences of any country. 

Southsea (part of Portsmouth) is warmer @ 21.8C but the interior of Portsmouth is even warmer but finding official metoffice data is proving hard.

2-3C might not sound a lot but remember it's an average.. There is just over 3C in average between southsea and Paris, and 2C between Leeds & southsea.

But it's the overall anual temps that make the difference, plus the solar energy** available. I think people often forget that part.. To put it this way Lerwick is just over 10 degrees north of Penzance, Lisbon is about 10 degrees south of Penzance.

**southern coast average annually more the double the sunshine some locations do.

Back to UK the winters down here on the southern coast are much warmer then large parts of interior and northern UK, again using Leeds & southsea there is 4C difference in January. All through the year there is significant night temp difference too.. Down here January night average is 5C with July & August average lows 15C 😊

There will be even more vast regional differences between other locations within the UK..