Signs of Spring.. and more pruning

The first flower of spring is a solitary snowdrop in my front garden. I planted several pots of these, in flower, last year. There are leaves showing for other snowdrops, but this one seems to have jumped the gun.

Getting the roses pruned before they start showing signs of life is my main aim in the garden at the moment. It is so much more difficult to prune hard enough when you can see lots of fresh shoots on the bits you are cutting off - it seems such a waste. So today it was the turn of Madame Alfred Carriere to get the chop. This rose was growing against the fence, but was so vigorous I decided at the start of last year to put a rose arch in at right-angles to the fence, across the path, to give it more support. The only problem is that the arch isn't quite in the right place, which means I have to cut off lots of growth "in the wrong place" i.e. not near the arch, and guide the rest, somewhat awkwardly, over the arch. It took several hours to prune this rose - with lots of long pauses to work out how best to approach it.

Here are the "before" and "after" pictures:

Not many birds are confident enough to use the bird feeders when I am working in the garden. So I was very surprised when, four feet away from the arch, two long-tailed tits landed on my fat feeders and fed for a few minutes, before moving on. I've never been so close to them before - they are usually very shy.