If asked to name a flower that captures the fleeting spring spirit of April, it would be the Bluebell I would think of first. Many people would be able to instantly recognise a bluebell, with its distinctive stem of bell-shaped drooping flowers, creating swathes of colour in spring woodlands. The flower has been known however, …
First spring butterflies
At last we can declare that spring is here! Cold winds may still blast through, and we can have balmy sunshine, hail, snow or pouring rain - sometimes all in the same day - but the days are stretching out into beautiful evenings, and the flush of growth in our gardens, waysides, and woods, is …
Sunshine, Swallows and Cathedral Peregrines
Rarely is the sky this blue; a perfect canvas for the circling buzzards that soar up-lit and up-lift. They stack, three to a thermal, in place of the planes whose absence allows the sky this clearing blue breath. Perfect canvas also for the half dozen brimstone butterflies indulged in delicate combat about the goat willow …
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Little Joys of Home
Whittaker's Cottages from Ashtead, Surrey - Weald and Downland Living Museum Home. What a place huh? For something that means such different things to different people, a concept loaded with connotations, the idea of 'The Perfect Home' is equally alluring and pressurising. I will admit to indulging a little too often in that guilty pleasure …
The scale of shrews
Late-March. It’s cold, and I'm craving spring. Spring colours too; sunshine yellow, baby pink and pastel blue. If Imbolc at the start of last month was the 'first showing', the difference to day length and the rise of the sun is now undeniable. This is the point where the year, after slumbering through the dark …
March
Each of the threshold months, those that fall on the cusp of seasonal shifts, can be tempestuous, but I think March is the most mercurial of them all; rarely kind, often barbed, but underneath is a tide of growth and burgeoning life that is gathering pace. Across the country, signs of spring start appearing earliest …
The Great British Teasel
This morning the weather was spring-mild, warmed by the yellowest of sunshine so precious of this time of year. I have been out in the garden, pottering around with my secateurs and trowel, happily loosing track of time. As the weather warms invertebrate life becomes active, and I can safely start to gather, cut back …
Love in a box
Theres no place like home. We've all discovered the truth in that saying in the past year! One of the silver linings of us all spending much more time at home was the opportunity to feather our nests - perhaps a deep clean behind the fridge (eeww...), maybe we splashed out on some new soft …
February
"The appearance of the snowdrop is a classic sign that winter is, if not exactly over, at least on the wane, and spring may be around the corner. If we search every nook of our gardens, parks, woods and churchyards, we'll find that tell-tale sign of the of the first green shoots that come before …
Notes from a few days in Exmoor (October)
Well, with lockdown restrictions continuing in various forms across the country, I thought a bit of escapism was needed in lieu of any holidaying for the time being. So here are a few notes and impressions from my notebook, from our last holiday (actually our honeymoon) back in October... Allerford, Somerset. Watching the day dawn …
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