Relaxed village life

We took coffee at a little bistro, on a photographic trip around the village Sunday. Leaving the house we were greeted by a half dozen sleepy looking donkeys, gently grazing such as they find on the narrow verges or hanging over the stock-proof garden boundaries. Snaps snapped we completed a circuit, passing ponies of similar alertness; one with a jackdaw picking its winter coat off  its back while it stood unconcerned. Unhurried ourselves, we got back to find the donkeys rather where we left them. The yearlings have fully adopted the low-energy lifestyle of their mothers and will be surprised shortly to find that they are pushed out of their comfort by the new arrivals now fattening those same jennies.

Yellow! Plant, but not heavy.

Monday evening, driving towards a sun that had the horizon as a tangent and a slab of cloud balanced just above, I had to defocus my eyes and let the road information flow in on the reduced visual bandwidth. Half a mile and I was North-bound again. Every blink brought back a band of bright yellow shapes where my retina was touched by sunlight. I blinked quickly, trying to get the afterimage to form into something recognisable; to pollinate my brain with an image. Looking right, sun-kissed billows of blooming gorse stretched along the heath. That was it, splodges of yellow - impressionist gorse.

Once home, the setting sun itself was hidden by roofs and Earth. The sky though was multi-hued up to the now underlit cloud whose condensing base looked afire, melting.

Coiled ready to

The recent virus has moved on, but I'm still struggling to move myself on. I did a spot of gardening today and it hurt. Played badminton for the second time, which hurt less. Gloriously, flavours are returning with my appetite. Food tastes as it should and I am rediscovering the simple pleasures of tea: Twinings Fair-Trade Breakfast, Yorkshire Gold, Camomile; even the tea ordinaire at Waitrose has flavour reminiscent of dried leaves and sunshine.

After two or three really spring-like days, we have a cold North wind again, but even so I had to look carefully at the closing canopy, the shrubs and grasses to decide whether we had reached the million shades of green day that marks the true start of every spring for me. I reckon about three hundred thousand today, so nearly there.

Youngest went shopping for his first suit today; still in spring himself.

Not so sticky

Stand under a deciduous tree, close your eyes and count to 5. Look up - check! the canopy opens. Somewhere someone has pulled the rip-chord of spring.

Living in an area designated as forest, it is usually the oaks that are the unmistakable starting-gun. Certainly they are not unique in cracking buds in the last week and a half; they closely followed the weeping willows and matched the uncurling corrugations of beech and the spreading fingers of chestnut.

For those of you who are shy and watch the ground, the rapid development of arum maculatum has been spectacular in the past week. For those who are too bashful yet for this bold plant, then the sudden burst of primrose leaf that has followed the flowers may be the sign that the seasons continue to turn.

April though. It cannot be certain yet that winter is over, whatever the warming statistics might say.

The airfield, gliding by

The plain's fog had settled this morning, bejeweling every blade of the cropped sward with the maximum quantity of liquid, determined by angle of contact, surface tension and gravity. The lightest brush of hoof or tyre on the verges trickles water into the limpid pools holding yesterday's ample rainfall across the heaths. Streaming sun would soon recreate the earlier mists here.

Lower down, back in woodland, mist still clung. Driving gave the impression of rushing toward an unfinished horizon which was rapidly completed and rendered as the front bumper pushed into the scenery. Here the sun caused a glow with some sense of its source, but no power over shadows.

My quiet

Too snotty, too sore, for a couple of weeks, but a short two miles in the dusk light this evening. On foot round the village. I was joined, for the first half, by a cloud of nervous jackdaws seeking a roost. They descended onto still bare tree crowns like goth confetti, then rose again to call and flock to the next.

Such a poor year for camellias, but with the compensation of an unbroken progression of daffodils for six weeks running into the flush of tulip magnolias.

Further progress will require sea and sails.