Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

I believe very strongly in the principle of carpe diem or seize the day! My daughter and grandson have just been to visit and we had a great time. Not much domestic got done in those ten days. Oscar was having too much fun, playing on his first ever roundabout, putting Mr. Zebedee back to bed in his jack-in-a-box and letting the sand slip between his fingers on his first ever beach. Now the ironing is threatening to escape from the cupboard where I keep it imprisoned; there is a thick layer of dust over everything which is shown up right now by the glorious sunshine that keeps streaming in through the windows; the freezer is quite empty; I have writing to do; there are vegetables to plant out in the garden and ...

 

However! That glorious sunshine keeps on streaming in and spring has arrived! The local caravan parks are full of people ready for the Easter weekend that is approaching fast and the birds are singing in the treetops. A few lines of a much-loved poem keep turning over and over in my mind and I'm lost! Who cares about the housework? Who cares about the vegetables?

 

'Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide'.

 

That got me thinking. All the cherry trees round here are pink, not white! Is this another variety? A.E. Houseman* seemed quite sure his were white, but he lived in Shropshire - perhaps that's different.

 

'And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.'

 

There he goes again - ours are hung with 'cherry pink', not snow. And Houseman seems to think he has fifty springs left to go out and see them; I'm not too sure I have that many left, so all the more reason to go.

 

All in all, I seemed to have plenty of excuse to leave the housework behind today and saunter out up a country lane in search of the cherry trees, which is just what I did this morning, not that I found a white cherry tree anywhere, but plenty of other compensations! Imagine a country lane, with neat green hedges, covered in fresh, new, bright spring growth, lambs bleating beside their mothers in the fields, chaffinches and robins singing in the trees and all along the hedgerows a procession of yellow celandine, pale yellow primroses, white, starry stitchwort, golden dandelions and a scattering of bluebells and red campion - too early really, but there nevertheless! Bliss! So, yet again, I'm leaving this achievement-orientated world behind in favour of the natural world which somehow calls to me time and time again and tempts me outside to revel in it. It's now the cherry tree is hung with bloom - next week won't do. Carpe Diem!

 

 

*A.E. Houseman, A Shropshire Lad

 

The Right Attitude to Rain

My title is nicked! I admit it without shame. It belongs to a book by Alexander McCall Smith that I hoped would provide me with a little wisdom. I was attracted by its title which turned out to have no discernible connection with the storyline or debate held within its pages. Maybe I missed something. I am fascinated by weather of all shapes and sizes. My blogs are full of it. Apologies to those who do not share my obsession. However, it is a part of my English heritage that I cannot shake. I am sitting today with a view out of my window over the Welsh hills. The hills are beautiful: not craggy, but escaping domesticity by their sharp outline and steep inclines. But they are not the primary object in view today. Today I am seeing, with some regret, the rain. It pours incessantly down, tainting everything around me with a greyish tinge and a misty quality. The earth is already saturated and the footpaths are caked in mud. It is a Romantic artist's dream but it just isn't doing it for me today. I am reaching the end of my tether with its drabness, wetness and depressing permanence.

 

I am a newcomer to Wales and well aware that Wales can be wet. Of course it's wet. We are slap bang in the course of the warm, wet Westerlies! Blessed with a hot, dry (short) summer, we were lulled into a false sense of security at first, but we knew in our hearts that this was beginners' luck and that the rain would surely come. And come it has. We can comfort ourselves that in this freak winter the whole country is sharing our misfortune this year and some with far worse consequences than ours. However, we know that this steady influx of dampness is normal here and it is no good being surprised, indignant or unprepared.

 

With this thought in mind, I picked Alexander's volume off the shelf with some eagerness, but found only the ongoing deliberations of its protagonist concerning the pros and cons of embarking on an affair with a much younger man. Not much about rain. Isabel Dalhousie can be relied upon to debate the rights and wrongs of moral philosophy in her life and everyone else's with as much diligence and enthusiasm as Mr. Cameron, although with less dogmatic certainty, but sadly she offered me no wisdom on the right attitude to rain. I am therefore forced, as I gaze out on an over-abundance of the stuff, to concoct my own cocktail of home-grown remedies. Having gone to the trouble, I might as well try them out on you.

 

Positive thinking is all the rage nowadays and very beneficial it can be. So perhaps it would help to dwell, if I can, on the positive aspects of rain. Let us begin by rearranging our vocabulary on the subject. Dull, depressing and grey will be scrubbed from the list immediately. No, rain is clear, cool and refreshing. It does not drip annoyingly down, and it does not flood. Rain pours, engulfs, forms white torrents, fills things that were empty, replenishes things that were in need, lubricates and loosens and, best of all, it goes with the flow... (It is harder to think of these things in a positive light when it is a chilly winter's day - better in the hot days of summer when dry and weary matter and people are in need of refreshment. Oh for those balmy days of summer...)

 

To continue, water must be thought of as a positive benefit... (This is a little tricky right now, with thoughts of unnaturally high tides, rising river levels, flooded homes and damaged promenades rise to the surface. However, the case is far from hopeless.) Just think of the concept of 'flow' alone. Where would we writers be without it? Gushing, pouring, flowing and over-abundance are transformed into heavenly visions when considered beside the ideas of thirst, drought, parched river beds, Water Aid or even writer's block! So, the right attitude to rain! I have done my best. I have tried to channel my thoughts, my vocabulary and my attitudes to the best of my ability. I have tried not to give in to the common mistakes of always complaining that there is too much or too little of something. I have tried to maintain a balanced viewpoint.

 

Are you convinced yet?

Solar Paradox

Another Thursday evening and time for my regular Writers Forum session. What will be the theme this time? A while ago we wrote on the topical theme of 'The Sun' . It is always topical - either not enough of it or too much. The summer came late this year, accompanied by justifiable complaints. Then the sunshine arrived in full force. There was possibly too much for some of us.There were people dying this summer, deaths induced by the destructive power of the sun. We were urged to keep cool, drink fluids, use sun cream, wear hats. All very necessary advice. Yet, paradoxically, without the life-giving power of this same sun our planet will expire. We were given keywords and concepts to include in our writing. We let our imaginations run riot...
 

I am encouraged! There is energy, life, a source of life for the whole planet. I need energy. There is a creative process that is ongoing through the year’s cycle. Each part of the cycle is a part of this life-giving productivity. Even the dark, dormant days are a part of that silent, energetic process where life stirs beneath the ground even though it is unseen. When it bursts forth there is colour – golden, yellow, white hot colour. Solar flares blind me. I am dazzled by the exuberance and the life-giving energy of this star.

 

 

The sun is at the centre of all. It is life engendering, heart-warming, encouraging, protective, almost caring. It is generous, outgoing and exuberant. I am comforted by its warmth.

 

 

But wait! It is a fireball. It dazzles, glows, burns and destroys. It is on the move, out of control even. It can be dangerous and I am halted in my tracks, my enthusiasm waning.

 

 

The sun is a moving fire. It turns. It is at the centre of our universe. But I am glad it is a star. It threatens to destroy. It appears out of control, but it is a star, ordered in a scientific universe, a servant of the cosmic cycles of the heavens. In my mind there is a sense of coolness and order induced by that word ‘star’. It comforts my fears. We are under control again. We can breathe again. This burning, radiating, pulsating mass of fireball is not tame, no, not tame, but it is ordered. There is a cycle. There are equinoxes – places of balance, places of harmony. I have respect for this sun. There is benign, warm, yellow sunshine. There is red, there is white hot fire. Shining, dazzling, blinding, destroying. It is written in the stars. I must have respect for this sun.

 

 

And when the sun is gone, marginalised by rain and winter chills, grey skies overhead and crisp whiteness beneath my feet, I will remember this fireball with affection and longing. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. As with the seasons of romance, the seasons of nature are like this. We forget so soon and long for more.

The Gannet

The bird falls out of the heavens, gleaming white, down, down, plummeting into the deep blue ocean, free falling, no parachute, white on blue. Smack, it hits the water, takes a moment’s rest, then up, up again. It soars into the clear, blue sky, a lonely gannet, all alone in the forefront of my view.

 

In the distance a misty haze hovers around the hummocky mountain ridge on the other side of this huge, blue bay. The foreground is in sharp focus, the distant hills less certain, an air of mystery and fathomlessness shrouding them and stealing my attention.

 

The clear, blue sea and my gleaming white gannet are fascinating. They arrest me and hold my attention for some time, as I gaze wonderingly at the spectacle in front of me. A vast expanse of endless blue and a plunging speck of white energy – dazzling white and brilliant blue – take up the foreground. But the mountains are something else. Their misty quality is tantalising, intoxicating and atmospheric. They hold my gaze and fill me with a sense of speculation – what are they?

 

What sheep graze on their grassy hillsides and rocky crags? What whitewashed cottages nestle in their folds? Who lives there and how do they exist in such a remote spot? What streams course down these steep hillsides and trickle unceasingly into brown, bubbling waterways in the valleys? What is unknown and unseen is more captivating, then, for me than what is bright, obvious and initially in my vision. Life’s mysteries have a greater power to capture my mind than her more obvious gifts, it seems. What would be left of life without that innate sense of wonder and curiosity?

The Mixed Border

What could be better than a glorious summer’s day in June? This year you have to make full use of them when they turn up! Add in birdsong, a freshly mown, green velvet croquet lawn in a walled garden of mellow, red brick and a mixed border. That’s even better! I am a lover of mixed borders.

 

Over in the corner a man in a striped T shirt is bent over one of the tall plants, doing what he knows needs doing. He is healthy-looking, wiry and tanned. He is accustomed to the outdoor life and he just knows what to do. He is an expert. You can see it by the results. Now he kneels on the grass, gently pruning off the dead leaves of a magnificent yellow lupin. At this stage in the summer the carefully spaced array of yellow lupins are the most striking plants on display. I love lupins. These are the colour of natural sea lupins but they are prolific, their tall stems overflowing in a profusion of pale yellow blooms, their graceful green fronds shimmering slightly in the tiniest of breezes.

 

I am fascinated by mixed borders and the skill and patience of the wise old gardeners who design them, poring over seed catalogues in winter, researching, planning, propagating, ordering, planting seeds, thinning seedlings, protecting from frost, planting out, watering, feeding, nurturing and just waiting, full of wisdom and patience. Then, somehow, right on schedule, old plants are rejuvenated, clumps of last year’s dead wood yield bright new shoots, new seedlings appear and everything grows, develops, reaches up for the light, blossoms and then, hey presto, as if by magic, a garden appears. The tallest plants are at the back, tiniest plants at the front – all in order: bright, eye-catching daisies, tall clumps of delphiniums, bluer than blue, countless varieties of delicate species of geranium, miniature irises, purple-headed aquilegias, drifts of yellow, nodding poppies and pansies in tiny clumps. My garden does not look like this.

 

How do they do that? The roses, clinging to the wall, spread their graceful foliage along the warm, red brickwork and shower yellow rose petals on the earth beneath them. The gardener advances down the row of lupins, slips a pair of well-worn secateurs into his back pocket and stands back to admire his work. A lucky man! Thrice-blessed with wisdom, patience and this glorious garden! I am grateful for his gifts and happy on this wonderful June day to share with him the magnificent outcome of his superior talents.

 

Powys Castle, Wales

A landscape unspoilt by human intervention...

 

 

 

A sedge warbler chatters in the reeds, hard to spot but distinctive, insistent, bringing me to attention. Beyond the river bank a hawk glides over the water meadows, swooping, gliding, alighting on an old fence post, just out of reach. A ewe baas in the distant fields, calling to her lamb, drawing it back closer to her. I sit, back against the river dyke, sheltered from the wind, in the warm embrace of mountains that enfold me on three sides, their circle broken only where the river meanders down to the sea, past sheep. cattle and reedbeds with their tall, white stems held erect over the flat landscape.

 

Below me, on the bank, a butterfly lands, spreads its wings for an instant, moves on, joined by a second - orange, black, delicately outlined. A tortoiseshell, red admiral, painted lady? No, none of these. Just another of the countless varieties, defying labels, confusing to identify but delighting me with its vibrant colour and intricate patterns. All around me, it is colour that lights up this magical landscape: turquoise sky, pale green hills, golden yellow furze bushes, brown tufts of meadow grass, blending together in a rich harmony, a natural symphony of light and shade. The hillsides are illuminated or darkened by a succession of shapes, patterns traced across them by the steady onward march of the clouds above, always changing, never still.

 

In the distance I hear the sound of the steam train, its gentle 'choo ooo', as if in a far off dream, carrying yet another load of contented passengers down, down from the green mountain to the glistening, blue sea.

 

Far away, on the other side of the fields, a solitary white car glitters in the sunshine as it makes its way slowly along the road that is now visible, now hidden, behind the screen of hedging towards  a cluster of houses and farm buildings - the only clear sign in this whole panorama of the existence of the human species. Apart from the chattering of the birds, the sound of distant sheep and the sighing of the wind, it is a silent world, a far cry from the city that I am used to. No concrete, no glass, no metal, only earth, water and vegetable matter, soft, green and natural, the way Mother Earth intended. No human intervention, nothing to spoil it - except me...

 

Weather Alert!

It's Sherlock Holmes weather! A thick mist has settled over the canals and if this were London in times past it would be a good day for a murder...

These days weather seems so 'global'. Maybe it's just that we are more aware of what is going on in other places. Huge weather systems develop and sometimes the whole continent seems enveloped by the same weather - whether it's drought, storms, or torrential rain and flooding. The weather is a wild card these days and even more unpredictable than ever.

I watch the weather's progress on TV. 'Exiled' in the Netherlands, I still like to watch the good old BBC 'back home'. Carol, in her latest outfit, with her never-failing neat hairdo, tells us that a depression is sweeping westwards across Britain. It will cause heavy rain and maybe some flash flooding - there are flood alerts out in many areas - but it will move away eastwards by tonight, so a better day tomorrow. 'Thanks for that, Carol!' I think. Where will it move to? Oh, just into northern Europe, France, the Netherlands - somewhere far away! In Britain they are looking forward to a fine weekend, but we shall be wearing their cast-offs.

Is our weather always someone else's cast-off? Rain today there means rain here tomorrow. Strong winds there are repeated here tomorrow, but hopefully a bit weaker, some of their initial fury gone. Somewhere, surely, the weather must be brand new! Like pristine, crisp, sparkling snow falls, with not a footprint to be seen, somewhere there must be shiny new weather - sparkling new raindrops, bright, shiny sunshine, pure, clean, soft rain that has never before touched the ground or glistened on the first rose of summer.

I imagine some kind of cauldron, or maybe a furnace, with weather elves, dressed in green, a bit like Santa's little helpers. They are busy creating weather. They hold pressure gauges and test their very own new recipes for high and low weather pressure systems. There are grumpy elves, down in the Doldrums, creating low pressure and gloom; bright, chirpy elves making bright, sunny days and happiness. Fresh off the peg!

There are dark, gloomy days, hurricanes, each with their own name, ready to roll and spread abroad chaos and destruction. In another place, there is a small store of perfect summer days, ready to be let loose sporadically, just when the inhabitants of earth have started to despair - the perfect blue sky, perfectly shaped, fluffy white clouds and soft gentle breezes. They are all new. Somewhere, high above earth's atmosphere, or in a deep, dark cavern far below us, this is for real! I know it. Just like the red sweater, I remember from my childhood, with its cuffs rolled up three times over, everyone's cast-offs were new once upon a time.

Lily Grace

We have a new member of our family now. She arrived the other day and was given the gift of a name on arrival: Lily Grace. She'll go far with a name like that! Some names just have a ring to them - a kind of flow. They sound like music.

What's in a name? What indeed? A name can make all the difference. Ask the marketing companies. There's a fortune in the right name for the right product.

Lily Grace is a product, of course. In the strictest sense of the word, she was produced by her clever parents, with a little help from the cosmic plan that underwrites all such happenings. One day her name may come in handy from a commercial, career enhancement point of view, but not just yet! Right now she's just Lily Grace - that sweet bundle of joy in a pink babygrow who delights the rest of her family with her charms. She has no idea what her fortune may turn out to be and whether her name will help.

A friend recently sent a joke via the internet about 'Being Poor'. The gist of it was the shame experienced by a young girl during her first ever school lesson on that age-old mystery: where do babies come from? Mortified, she explained to her parents her embarrassment when her friends voiced their various expert theories on the subject, from storks to gooseberry bushes to supermarkets and she was forced to admit that her own parents had been so poor they had to make her themselves!!! The truth will out! But the truth is we're all products and we all need the right name.

In many cultures names have a meaning. We researched our own daughter's name extensively. Catherine Joy: pure + joy = pure joy! Not a bad start in life. Does the name shape the baby or the baby shape the name? An interesting question. Names such as Faith or Hope, Charity or Verity give a child a lot to live up to but also mark the level of trust invested in them by their hopeful parents. It's good to have positive expectations.

So here's to you, Lily Grace! May you be blessed with the beauty and sweet temperament your family have invested in you. We look forward to meeting you.

Soft the rain is falling...

It's a pretty month - May. One of my favourites. It doesn't always come up to our expectations but when it does it is one of the best.  Sadly, spring is often swallowed up between winter and summer and barely happens. One minute we are frozen; the next minute, finally, it is summer. Not so this year. April has been  how it should be - a glorious start to spring with a typical mix of April showers and blustery days, punctuated by warm sunshine. May promises to follow suit, although we are only at the beginning. Maybe we've had a touch too much rain for some, but with a shortage of rain these last two years, we can hardly complain, and there's plenty of sunshine too.

It is not often I celebrate the rain. But at this time of year there is a special kind of rain which drops softly down on our gardens, encouraging fresh, prolific new growth and bringing hope. Winter is over and, no matter what the weather may do, it will not return until next year. Balmy days are on the way. We can even enjoy the rain... especially in these days of drought! 

Soft the rain is falling

Gentle on my garden

Sweetly gently falling

Bringing summer softness.

Gone the winter’s harshness

Melted now for summer

Memories of winter

Peaceful, flowing down.

Lilac brings forgetfulness

Like the pain of childbirth

Gently, gently borne

Into the soft and waiting earth.

Purple petals falling

Blossom drifting downward

Fragrance all around

Is scattered on the breeze.

Seasons bring new gifts;

Old ones are forgotten.

Bright the summer skies

As the rain falls gently down.

Healer of my winter times,

Time is flowing onward,

Mellows tones of harshness

Into softened shades of gold.

Like a gentle river

Time flows on unending

Bringing back perspective

And washing sorrows clean.

Come then gentle raindrops

Wash away my sorrows.

Bring your glistening rainbow

In the sunlight of new hope.

Old Man's Snoring

Did I say ‘the perfect summer’s day’ in my last blog? How wrong can you be – now look at it! Today the weather is getting its own back for my foolish mistake. It’s pouring! ‘It’s raining, it’s pouring, The old man’s snoring!’ floats into my mind – an old nursery rhyme from my childhood which is linked inseparably for me now with this kind of wet, windy weather. Well, the sunshine was nice while it lasted.

'He bumped his head and went to bed, And couldn't get up in the morning.' We used to sing it in the school playground while playing skipping games. It’s time for the summer holidays. The children have broken up from school. We’re tired and we need a rest. Nowadays we’re all short of sleep and having trouble getting up in the morning! Working hours for most people seem longer than ever and the weather here has been sticky and humid lately, making us sleep restlessly. A friend from Turkey writes that it is too hot there and she misses the Dutch rain! Not me! A gentle shower is one thing and the gardens love it, but today there’s a real gale blowing and the rain is coming down in torrents. But maybe it will clear the air and bring us some relief from the stickiness.

‘Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.’ Another rhyme from my childhood, proving that the rumour that the English are obsessed about the weather is probably correct. Then there’s poor old Doctor Foster who ‘went to Gloucester (pronounced Gloster) in a shower of rain’. The rain evidently got worse because the rhyme informs us ‘He stepped in a puddle right up to his middle, And never went there again!’ What rubbish we are told when we are little and so gullible!

Let’s finish then with a word or two from e.e. cummings whose world is ‘mud-luscious’ and ‘puddle-wonderful’*! His wonder at the natural world is infectious, even though his use of language is sometimes confusing:

'i thank You God for most this amazingday: for the leaping greenly spirits of treesand a blue true dream of sky; and for everythingwhich is natural which is infinite which is yes'**

which, I guess, has to include the rain too!


* e.e. cummings ‘in Just-’
** e.e. cummings ‘i thank you God for most this amazing’

I don't do yoga!

Someone said to me the other day: “You must spend a lot of time sitting looking at nature.” I guess I do. I guess when I think about it my blog is crammed full of birds, hares, butterflies, lambs, frogs and flowers! She’s right - I love to look at ‘nature’!

Why? Why do we do that? For me, it’s relaxing: balm for the soul, as the phrase goes. I love to just sit. “Sometimes I sits and thinks; sometimes I just sits”, my mum used to say. I don’t do yoga, but I do meditate and I love to do it out of doors. Life is busy. The city where I live is noisy, achievement-orientated, dusty and dirty and, although it’s vibrant and stimulating sometimes, it’s also exhausting. My garden is a haven. Right now it’s a mini ‘Keukenhof’ (that famous Dutch garden) – full of tulips, narcissus and grape hyacinth. Red, yellow and blue – primary colours. It’s not subtle, but it’s bold and beautiful. Even in April the birds and butterflies love it, and so do I. Out in the countryside it gets even better and I can stop on a walk and watch hares racing across the fields or crested grebe bobbing up and down on the canal in their annual mating ritual. It’s all around us when we stop and look.

Why is nature so restful and relaxing? I guess it’s so at peace with itself. It just ‘is’. Nature doesn’t struggle or strive. A friend of ours said “you never see an apple tree straining to produce apples”. They just come, regular as clockwork, every year. It’s an intrinsic part of the tree’s ‘apple-ness’. It will never produce pears (without some very smart, human intervention). Life can be such hard work for us humans. We need to achieve – and be seen to achieve – such a lot. So sometimes a long hard look at nature can be so refreshing.

“Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. But I tell you, Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these”.* The Bible puts it very picturesquely but maybe if we stare long enough at nature and meditate on it, some of that natural radiance will rub off and we can stop rushing around so fast and lay back a bit – stop thinking and just sit, like the lilies!

*Luke’s gospel: chapter 12, verse 27

The Kitchen Garden

No year in the Netherlands, expat or otherwise, would be complete without making that annual pilgrimage to the bulbfields – the bollenstreek, as it is called. Some things are just too special to miss and the yearly extravaganza that Mother Nature puts on in those bare old fields that have been overwintering under a thick covering of frost, ice and snow is one of them. The warm weather has arrived. It’s time for rejuvenation! It’s time for colour! And I love it!

However, let’s apply a bit of realism here before we drown in an excess of sentimentality…The Dutch, it seems, have a different take on flowers to many other nations. Here in Holland, amongst the most famous flower-growers of the world, nature works in straight lines. Rows and rows of colourful tulips are laid out for us to see, in orderly stripes of colour: the palest of pink hyacinths, scarlet tulips, strikingly yellow daffodil stripes, set off by a splash of that most vivid hyacinth blue. The Dutch think in straight lines and are turned on, not by sentimental dreams of a glorious garden landscape, but by productivity, production lines, profit and loss and precise schedules for the export of their major, multi-million euro, commercial exercise. To the watching expats and tourists, however, the landscape is breathtaking and it’s time for a little dreaming and romance.

However, another shock is in store for the uninitiated. Not only is the aesthetic appearance of these fields of flowers not uppermost in the minds of their Dutch growers, despite nature’s best efforts, but they are not growing the flowers for their own sake at all! The flowers are largely expendable – just a necessary means to the commercial profit-making end: that all-important multiplication and maturing of the flower bulbs. What is important to the growers lies in the dark earth, buried out of sight. Some use is made, it is true, of cut flowers which are sold in flower stalls and shops all over Holland and exported across the world, but the major issue here is the cultivation of bulbs. In the flower fields the flower heads can be ruthlessly and systematically cut off to encourage further growth beneath the ground. The flower growers are patient and pragmatic and can wait whilst this process takes its course. In the meantime, the flowers lie in huge heaps by the side of the fields and by the roadside. Huge processions of flower floats display some of them for watching tourist eyes but the majority die unloved and unwanted. Flower production is not for the faint-hearted!

The final irony is to be found in that wonderful name: ‘Keukenhof’, known so well and pronounced so badly by countless myriads of annual tourists. They flock to the area by plane, ferry and coach and arrive on buses and in cars and campers to trample the fields and stand amazed in one of the most famous flower parks in the world. ‘Keukenhof’: a byword for natural beauty and breathtaking colour! These flowers are grown for their own spectacular beauty, but also as a showcase for the bulb growers to encourage visitors to order bulbs to stock our gardens next year and in years to come. Many of us are unaware of the prosaic roots of that romantic sounding name: the kitchen garden! Just a modest little vegetable garden…

More of a bleat than a tweet!

I saw lambs today! Frolicking, frisking, twisting, turning, gambolling, snowy white lambs! They were sandwiched, on a small strip of land, between the main road and the glasshouses. I felt sorry for them in their polluted, noisy, restricted and unattractive environment. It was a far cry from the romantic idyll of country living where I thought they belonged.

Then I looked at them. They were totally absorbed in their gambolling and frisking, leaping about on the green grass and running, at intervals, for comfort and sustenance from their mother, buffeting her mercilessly in their greedy attempts to feed. Theirs would be a short life anyway, no doubt, but it seemed to be a happy one. They knew no other, more privileged environment and, as far as I could see, yearned for nothing more than the company of their fun-loving brothers and sisters and the warmth and nutrition of their mother’s warm fleece and ever-ready milk. The strip of grass seemed to provide all that was needed by the sheep too.

Nothing to worry about – everything provided for. Who was I to complain that they were needy and neglected? Just indulging in a spot of naive anthropormorphism and projecting my own needs and wants on a bunch of contented, well-fed creatures. Nothing to bleat about after all!

Winter Parade

It may be winter but I am too much of an outdoor person to stay inside by the fire for long. I just have to get out! Wandering along the Dutch canals in a tiny pocket of countryside hidden between the motorways and the noisy bustle of everyday life and accompanied only by the sounds of blue tits and warblers cheeping in the willow trees, I began to be able to hear myself think and this was the result!

Winter Parade

Reeds, standing tall beside the water’s edge,
Pale golden in the winter sunlight,
Standing guard, waiting,
For the changing of the seasons.

Pollarded willows, patterned and regimented,
In serried ranks along the bank,
Tall upright stems, pushing upward,
Against the pale winter sky.

Two dark figures on the distant towpath,
March on, muffled against the bitter cold,
A small black mongrel
Trotting happily behind them.

Cold and crisp, the winter’s icy stillness,
But already a faint hint of spring
Hesitating in the wings,
Awaiting its proper cue.

Rare glint of sunshine on oily water,
Casting its golden glow,
Forecasting the winter’s end
And another new beginning.

Why don't the trees get bored?

It's autumn - time for a bit of reflection on the seasons.

Late in the summer, the leaves dry out and turn colour. They fall to the ground, making a rich multi-coloured carpet of golds, reds and browns. In the city streets, they are swept up by armies of municipal workers, armed with brooms, shovels and little trucks or by means of noisy, leaf-blowing or wood-crunching monsters. In the countryside, the leaves gather in corners and under hedges, blown into drifts by the autumn gales, where they provide a home for hedgehogs, field mice, beetles and spiders. Finally, they rot down into a fine, nutritious mulch of dense, rich vegetable matter, nurturing the growth of next year’s plants.

All through winter, the trees stand bare: tall and proud and unashamed of their perennial nakedness. The trees enter their period of rest, of trance, of recuperation: not a winter of discontent but a winter of hibernation. They wait patiently, while the winds blow and the soft rain produces a damp atmosphere that fosters a covering of damp, dark green moss. At times the snow covers their branches with a sprinkling of pure white.

At last, every year, unseen and unheard, the sap begins to rise. Then, all of a sudden, ‘pop’ – a bud bursts forth, covered in sticky sap – then another and another and, as a reward for their patience it seems, tiny buds begin to unfurl; their protective coverings drop to the ground and are borne away on the breeze. Another spring is born. These tiny leaves develop into glorious, brand new, fresh green foliage. They mature and grow, turn a deeper, darker shade of green and stretch up towards the light, basking in the rays of the summer sun.

The woodlands thicken, become dense and overgrown. They provide shelter for nesting birds and shade for weary passers-by. A vast array of fruits, nuts, vegetables and grain appear in our fields and orchards. They ripen in the sunshine and the summer rain. We share them, willingly or otherwise, with birds, mice, wasps, butterflies and a host of other creatures and, every year, we gather in the harvest.

Over and over, again and again, nature repeats its cycle. Never bored, never hungry for change or looking for some new novelty or fresh challenge, nature follows its appointed course with mind-blowing steadiness and reliability. Why should I, then, in my 21st century humanity, as a part of this natural cycle, be fashioned so differently? After only a couple of repetitions of a simple task or at the outset of another yearly cycle, I grow weary and bored and retire defeated, exhibiting signs of repetitive strain injury! I am destined, it seems, to be eternally caught in the tension between that soothing sense of security achieved by performing a familiar task well and with ease and the brain-dead boredom of a task repeated one time too many.

Enough has been said on the subject of dealing with constant change – a subject that is much highlighted in these changing times. But when boredom sets in and we are powerless to change our lot, how should we learn to rest contented when nothing changes? How can we learn to flow with the seasonal rhythms of nature and continue to be productive and motivated day in, day out, with those same old things?

Where would we be if the trees felt the same? How would life go on if the birds and animals tired so easily of their seasonal tasks of nest-building, reproduction and foraging endlessly for food to feed the next generation? What if the spring decided to do something different next March? There are lessons to be learned from the wise old trees!