Best Intentions
Forgot to add that I had every intention of taking some new, frosty snaps this weekend but, ah, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, isn’t it?
The night before, Fella had arrived with a shiny new coffee plunger (the best kind of gift, it came in a box wrapped in brown paper) and muffins which he had made. So in the morning we had breakfast in bed and read the paper (the one with the nice pink pages). I should add that he brought the breakfast to the bed.
V: This is wonderful, thank you. I feel like Lady Muck.
F: You are Lady Muck.
With this warm winter and my own attachment to a comfortable bed, I fear my winter image stock will be a little thin this year. Where might I register an interest in a snowfall later in the month?
Dendritic
Against a dawn sky coloured with fading highlighter, bare winter branches remind me of the Nile and, tangentially, of Churn and the Chelt, Slad, Severn and Wye, Avon and Thames, with its source not far from here; further afield, the Great Ouse, Graham Swift’s fictional Leem, the Yare, the Blythe and the Alde; and then on, on, on to the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo, the Orange and Vaal, Gamtoos and Gouritz, Kowie, Kromme and Kei, Mtamvuna and Umzimkulu, Hluhuwe and Mfolozi, Tugela and uMngeni and their tributaries, Msunduzi, Bushmans, Lions, Karkloof and Mooi.
Plants for Rain
Something lovely from Christmas in Suffolk:
Once (years ago, of course) in a feature about plants that are attractive to bees, I mistakenly referred to umbellifers as umbrellifers. The error dawned on me the night after I’d submitted the piece. In mild panic I rang the editor the next morning but it was too late. The piece was for a weekend paper and it had already gone off to press.
Still, looking at these woody spokes revealed by wind and ice, it’s not a wholly inaccurate term, is it?
Here and now
One of the curious things about writing for magazines, as I do, is that you will inevitably experience a kind of virtual life three or four months before the fact, in order to accommodate print production schedules. This means that in summer, while kith and kin are ensconced in one of these, gin and tonic in hand, in our heads we magazine writers will already be celebrating the perfect Christmas, complete with happy families, a magical tree and the gifts you’ve always wanted.
I was reminded of this yesterday afternoon when, on a rare weekend at home, I walked through the fields that surround the village in which I live. The birds were out in force and some time over the past fortnight blossom had appeared, as had daffodils, hyacinths, muscari and forsythia. ‘So this is what spring is really like,’ I said to myself, absurdly pleased about being outdoors without a coat and feeling real warmth on my shoulders.
Some months ago, around Christmas in fact, as snow blew down from the north (and the east and the west), flights were grounded and any excursion outdoors involved warming a cold bottom against the Aga – ok, ok, the radiator – I had imagined everything about yesterday and, indeed, had yearned for it. In my head I’d inhaled the scent of washing dried on the line, heard the robin, sentinel on a bough of hawthorn springing into leaf, felt the twitch of fingers aching for an allotment and had ridden a step-through bike from the most beautiful bike shop in Great Britain. It had worked. My work looked fine. But there is nothing like the real thing; nothing quite like proper sunshine on your shoulders.
Of course the demands of work mean that June and July are already here but for this season, this spring, twee though it may sound, I shall endeavour practise the pleasure of being in the moment. No longing; no wishing to be anywhere else; here is good.
* I had nothing to do with this image but use it courtesy of the International Bulb Flower Centre, a collective body that was established in 1925 to promote Dutch bulbs around the world. If you are thinking of growing a few bulbs yourself, do have a look.
leave a comment