For a few years, in my blogs and journals, I have felt the rising sap of spring force its way up from my toes to drip gently across my writings and typings, but this spring, exciting though it has been, has gone unmarked. This is not the time to question why, but I feel it may be time to catch up a little.
Spring started, by my recollection, about 7 weeks ago, although I've heard reports of earlier brimstone butterflies which are one of the earlier heralds. I can only claim to have seen brimstones, small whites and a distant brown of some sort so far, but there have been quite a few moths, most of which I have no chance of identifying.
At the Easter weekend we had the pleasure of watching a couple of dragonflies emerge from one of our lilly ponds, without looking it up I would guess they were broad bodied chasers. The ponds also contain tadpoles (mostly frogs I expect) frogs, common newts, dragon and damsel larvae, stone-fly larvae, pond skaters and innumerable small floating and wiggling creatures, including shrimp and leech. We were also visited in the garden and the conservatory by a hornet, one of the early brood even, not just a queen.
On Thursday last week, my slow walk was interrupted briefly to watch the hunting of a slowworm, on the verge by the local football ground. I've seen them there before, but not since the field was re-fenced. Good to see the habitat still suits these golden reptiles.
The apple trees have largely lost their blossom now, although the may is glowing white still. Tree canopies are expanding and glowing verdant greens.
Blackbirds, again nesting in the garage ivy have brooded and been destroyed by a cat (again), jackdaws are in the chimneys and starlings in the eaves. I have seen swallows and heard a cuckoo, an unusual visitor to the village.
The village is gently overrun by the first lapping wave of tourism, the usual contrived flood has been allowed to cross the village road, by someone's judgement then we expect no more frost. Litter has begun to bloom again in the hedgerows, more than is usually dropped by the college crowd.
I saw my first foal a week and a half ago, and a donkey foal a week ago. The cow herd I pressed through this morning on my way to work had a number of small calves. Some of the lambs, I'm sure, have already been dressed in mint.
The weather has been dry for a couple of weeks. Monday was so warm I wore shorts, to the beach, but I was not as brave as my two youngest boys to enter the water. The waves waxed and waned in height, from a gentle lap to six foot high crashing monsters that chased the rising tide-line up the beach and surprised the younger members of a few families, dampening the trouser legs of their guardians and causing splashing dashing into the shallows to retrieve small buckets and floating spades. Th ice-cream choice was a hard one. Rain is now promised, and not just to wet William's wedding, but I hope, to bring a little relief to the stressed parts of the garden flora and the forest trees and heaths.
I saw, from the kitchen, a speckled wood and a new-fledged robin. Speckled play-off.
