Either way, I rather enjoyed the fact that 1 a and 1 d were the same as last week's. I almost decided not to do it, thinking that the Indie had messed up, before the different preamble made me think again. V amusing, for me at least.
The alternatives are implied by the first definition of the thematic phrase in Chambers - either it's (expressly) the end of winter or (implicitly) it isn't.