Spring Time – light relief back in England

Spring time

Something a little different for my blog today. I just got back from six weeks in Brazil and one of the key reasons for coming back was to enjoy springtime in England. I have been missing the pleasures of seasons in Brazil so I took myself down to my two fields, a little way from my English home and it was a sheer delight. I took my camera with me but it doesn`t quite convey the warm sun and the peace I felt there – I can “see the flavours” (an example of synaesthesia, especially for Fatima who claims to know more about English grammar than me because she has been studying it for many years in Brazil. Trouble is, she may be right!?)

Mum`s Blossom tree

Quite a lot of the trees planted in the fields have been planted in memory of family and friends, so I was delighted to see the blossom coming out on the cherry tree, which was planted in memory of my mum, for whom flowers were a perennial delight…

…and I was so pleased to see quite a few of the daffodils we had planted were still showing off, Wordsworth would have been pleased to see them here too, I am sure, in his birthday week. He would have been 246 on the 7th April, born, as he was in 1770.

Dancing daffodils

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of dancing Daffodils;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.

Not quite ten thousand in my fields but they are coming along.

I am not the only visitor to the fields either. The grass pathways provide the evidence for this statement and along all the pathways there is an extra worn pathway that is probably made by a family of foxes we know to be living nearby and I have seen them occasionally walking the paths. They must pretty well walk the same routes every day given the clear trail they leave.

Wildlife track!

Or, at least I assumed it was the foxes until today, when I had a bit of a surprise. It may be ALL the local wildlife walk the same trail, which is why it is so clear. I was sitting very quietly on the little bench that runs right around one of my young oak trees, as you see here, (that picture was taken last autumn, in case you think I have got the seasons muddled!)

Oak tree and bench

Anyway, I was sitting very quietly with my back to the tree facing to the left as you see the picture, the warm sun on my back, completely at peace with the world, when I noticed a slight movement in my peripheral vision. There, not five yards away was a large floppy eared hare, having approached down the path behind me. She looked over at me without the least concern and we made eye contact for the briefest moment. I had been taking photographs and had my camera in my right hand. I tried, oh so quietly to bring the camera to bear without seeming to move, but she obviously didn`t want her photo taking, thank you, and managed to hop away (actually in no great hurry, but just too quickly for my shutter to catch her!), taking a gentle zig-zag through the longer grass, over to the other side of the field. No picture to prove it I fear, but a magical moment for me.

New spring leaves

The young leaves were just beginning to come out on many of the trees we have planted. The renewal of life in springtime is one of the key delights for me at this time of year and the new young leaves seem to bring with them a sense of hope that calms the stresses of the corruption I have been writing about recently in the blog.

Also encouraging to see was a rather raggedy looking peacock butterfly that had overwintered somewhere nearby (perhaps in the shed?) and was regathering her strength form one of the dandelion flowers on the pathway.

The pond was absolutely full today as well after quite a bit of rain in the last month and the early flowers in the pond were showing their spring colours too. I saw quite a few insects scurrying about above and below the water line but there were no fish or frogs in evidence today.

Pond flowers

I thought the pond was going to be blessed by the presence of a pair of mallards that came swooping in low but they were on their way to landing in the stream that runs along the western edge of my fields. Then a few moments later I heard the creaking flight of a lone swan flying above the field on the other side of the stream, heading off towards Gibsmere, not far away. As I already said above – a magical day altogether!

Spring lambs

And, finally, as I drove back up the lane towards the village, it was my great pleasure to meet some new spring lambs enjoying the sunshine a couple of fields away. Delightful.

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