Hello Blog Land- doesn't time fly.
It's now the start of May & nature is approaching one of it's best displays of the year.
Yesterday I took the small dog for a walk along country lanes- a very traditional thing to do on a sunny Bank Holiday Sunday. I passed a pretty little church that had dedicated one part of the church yard to wild flowers. Against a back drop of the old brick church with stained glass windows all around, a wisteria just coming into flower, was a small "meadow" of buttery yellow cowslips. The bench in the church yard looked very inviting in the sunshine but it was cold & the small dog impatient so I carried on with the walk. In the hedgerows I found another yellow flower (I think of April & May as the "yellow flower" time of year) - Mr PoppyM had talked of this plant a lot, but not coming from around here I wasn't quite sure I knew what the plant looked like. Well I do now, a nettle-type plant with hooded yellow flowers that produce seed pods that rattle - which gives it it's common name "rattle". Later on it the walk we came to one of the main reasons for picking that route - an apple orchard. It wasn't in full blossom but still quite a sight & scent - epecially so as it contrasted vividly with a flourescent yellow field of oil seed.
There is a little wood near here that is a delight. At the moment it is sporting a display of bluebells - they are not yet at their best - I reckon they will be in a day or two- then I shall visit it at dusk to look for that unique, etheral bluebell haze. It is a wood that for me sums up much of what is England - a small wood (less than an acre) with abundant wild flowers - snowdrops, primroses, cowslips, lesser celandine & now bluebells (the English ones). Up above is a noisy rookery. And in true idiosyncratic fashion, come summer there will be Long Horn cattle sheltering from the sun - they are quite a sight - huge animals peering over the fence with handbar horns!
Onto things traditional - once again I didn't manage to see the May Day Morris Dancers...one day...
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