Spring treasure 2: Blackthorn

admin Blog 07/04/201807/04/2018Flowers, Landscape, Seasons, Spring, Trees

7/4/2018 My belief that spring might have arrived was premature. More than a week later, there is still barely a green leaf to be seen, barely a ray of sunshine to be felt. The meadows along the Brett Valley are flooded, and my garden pond is encroaching on the lawn. It hardly seems feasible that exactly a year ago I saw my first swallows of the season: I expect I will be waiting a good few weeks longer this year.

Perhaps the feeling of extended winter has been partially responsible for my slowness in choosing a second spring treasure. Busyness over Easter accounts for another part of the delay, and the remainder – the biggest obstacle – has been caused by at least five changes of mind over which particular spring wonder to settle on. The unusually slow progress of the season means that many delights of early spring, which usually take place consecutively, are coinciding this year, and choosing between them is nearly impossible. I feel like a bumblebee buzzing from flower to flower, too excited about the appearance of so many different food sources at once, and unable to decide which nectar I like best.

Last week I opted out, but I feel it is high time to commit myself. A sunny day finally arrived a few days ago – the first since I last wrote – and sitting on the terrace in the sun was more conducive to forcing myself into a decision.

I chose blackthorn. A blossom that I was half expecting to include in my late winter treasures, and the first to put some colour back in the hedgerows.

Spring treasure 1: British Summer Time Begins

admin Blog 26/03/201826/03/2018Animals, Crossways Farm, Flowers, Landscape, Seasons, Spring, Wildlife

26/3/2018 It is hard to believe it is nearly the end of March and signs of spring are only just beginning. Apparently deciding after the last icy spell that they had waited long enough, all the flowers and blossom appeared all at once: blackthorn in the hedgerows, carpets of primroses, daffodils in earnest, violets and periwinkles. I saw the first green leaf on my hardiest hawthorn plant this week, and a moorhen made up her mind to settle in her nest on the front pond.

But still there is far less in the way of spring than was to be found at the beginning of March last year. Mowing the lower lawn is still a good fortnight or more off – I would sink into a mole tunnel-ridden bog if I were to try it now – and I have yet to find a white or mauve violet, celandine or Siberian squill in my garden. The daffodils are only just beginning to think about showing their faces.

Winter treasure 12: Stray Snowdrops

admin Blog 13/03/201826/03/2018Crossways Farm, Flowers, Seasons, Winter

13/3/2018 Everyone loves snowdrops. They are the first ubiquitous flowers that signal the lengthening days and slow approach of spring. They are pretty and delicate, and their colour is fitting for the time of year.

I love them too. I was thrilled to spot my first snowdrops of the year in a churchyard in the middle of January, though the ones in my garden were barely above ground yet: they didn’t come fully into bloom until a mild, sunny spell in the middle of February. A month later, they are still going strong, and the daffodils show no signs of taking over from them.

Winter treasure 9: February warmth

admin Blog 20/02/2018Crossways Farm, Flowers, Seasons, Spring, Winter

‘There is very often a warm interval in February, sometimes a few days earlier and sometimes later, but as a rule it happens that a week or so of mild sunny weather occurs about this time […] These mild hours in February check the hold which winter has been gaining, and as it were, tear his claws out of the earth, their prey. If it has not been so bitter previously, when this Gulf stream or current of warmer air enters the expanse it may bring forth a butterfly and tenderly woo the first violet into flower.’

Richard Jeffries, ‘Out of Doors in February’, in The Open Air (1885).

20/2/2018 When I discovered this essay at the beginning of winter, it struck me that Jeffries was right about February. At least, I remembered such days of warmth and sunshine last year, and in some previous years. Certainly, the first opportunity of the year to sit in the sun on the terrace usually occurs in February. There is nothing more delicious than that first sensation of unambiguous warmth and brightness falling on your face for the first time – properly – in several months. But it might as well have been several years.

Suffolk churches 56: Letheringham and Framsden (January 2018)

admin Blog 14/02/201814/02/2018Flowers, Places, Seasons, Suffolk churches, Trees, Winter

St Mary’s, Letheringham
Outdoor temperature: 6.5˚C; Indoor temperature: 7.4˚C, humidity: 63%
My obligatory return trip to Monewden to take photos had an unexpectedly beneficial side effect: it provided the impetus to go out with my cello. If it hadn’t been for that semi-reluctant, semi-long-distance drive, I might not have discovered that playing in churches in January can be enjoyable, despite the cold.

Suffolk churches 30: Saxtead and Westleton (July 2017)

admin Blog 23/10/201723/10/2017Flowers, Places, Seasons, Suffolk churches, Summer

Crippling indecision and a pile of chores had turned my intended four days’ break into barely two, and I left home in a bad mood. I was going to Westleton, near the coast, as the accommodation options for other destinations I’d considered had gradually dwindled the longer I dithered, and somehow I found my cello once again in the passenger seat. It was an easy opportunity to arrange a cello duet rehearsal on my way home, as Will, the other cellist, lives not too far from Westleton. Still, church visiting was otherwise not amongst my plans.

All Saints’, Saxstead
Passing through Saxtead proved too much of a temptation: I had missed the church on a few occasions because I spotted the sign too late. This time I was prepared: I remembered in time to look out for it and take the turn down the driveway. It wasn’t until I walked up to the churchyard gate that I realised, to my surprise, that the church didn’t have a tower. From the road, and even from the car park in front of the gate, the view was almost entirely obscured by trees.

Suffolk churches 26: Nedging and Naughton (July 2017)

admin Blog 07/10/201707/10/2017Flowers, Suffolk churches, Summer

St Mary’s, Nedging
The sum total of my experience of Nedging and Naughton was, until now, passing through ‘Nedging with Naughton’ on the main road between Bildeston and Needham Market. I didn’t like it. I remembered having once looked at a little cottage to rent there, and decided against it because of the location. Looking at the map, however, I discovered that away from the main road were two distinct villages: Naughton, just off this road, and Nedging, nearer Bildeston. Nedging church was in fact much nearer than I realised, and therefore, due to time constraints, was the one I decided to visit today.

Suffolk churches 23: Gislingham, Yaxley and Thrandeston (June 2017)

admin Blog 25/09/201728/09/2017Flowers, Landscape, Places, Seasons, Suffolk churches, Summer, Swallows

My plan to go north once more to visit Yaxley and Thrandeston churches via Gislingham was not entirely without ulterior motive: I would pass Thornham Parva on my way. I was itching to revisit that little treasure now that my ‘church eyes’ were sharper, and I was also on the hunt for a gravestone: I had found out not long before, by one of those curious coincidences, that one of my first cello teachers was buried there.

As I drove through Suffolk, I noticed the unmistakable yellowing of the countryside that had begun only in the last week. I was pleased by this confirmation that my chosen calendar, the astronomical rather than meteorological, was the more accurate one to follow: summer, as far as I am concerned, begins on the solstice. Of course, the reality is that seasons are constantly on the move and there is no sudden beginning or end to any season. In one year of early heat and dryness summer might seem to begin in May, and in another, it might seem to begin in July.

Suffolk churches 22: Little Waldingfield and Kersey (June 2017)

admin Blog 14/09/201725/09/2017Flowers, Places, Suffolk churches, Summer

St Lawrence’s, Little Waldingfield
One blustery Saturday, cello practice was overdue and I wanted to get out of the house, but the idea of visiting a church or two for both purposes was not specific enough for my indecisive state of mind. The only sufficiently compelling destination I could think of was Gestingthorpe, a village beyond Sudbury and just over the border into Essex, where I had been told a medieval kiln firing was taking place that afternoon. I had never heard of such a thing, though my friend Mark assured me it was a fairly regular event. So, being a fan of pottery, I decided to go along and see for myself. The first church along the route that I hadn’t yet visited was Little Waldingfield. If I had the time and desire, I thought, I could afterwards continue on to Great Waldingfield and Acton, although I wasn’t sure how many of them I would find available on a Saturday afternoon at the end of June, when there is often a flurry of weekend village events.

Wildflowers

admin Blog 08/07/201714/08/2017Crossways Farm, Flowers, Plants, Seasons, Summer

‘… and even now […] the summer mead shines as bright and fresh as when my foot first touched the grass. It has another meaning now; the sunshine and the flowers speak differently, for a heart that has once known sorrow reads behind the page, and sees sadness in joy. But the freshness is still there, the dew washes the colours before dawn. Unconscious happiness in finding wild flowers – unconscious and unquestioning, and therefore unbounded.’

Richard Jeffries, ‘Wild Flowers’ in The Open Air (1885) p.36

8/7/2017 I have a new-found appreciation for thistles: they flowered just in time to teach me a lesson. The day before Steve was due to arrive with his strimmer, I saw that the thistles, towering above my head and taller than I remember them in previous years, were covered in more bumblebees and butterflies than I have seen gathered together anywhere this year. The thistles were crowding over the path, so I would have to have them cut back a little for the welfare of paying guests, but otherwise, I decided, wherever they were not causing trouble, they were staying.

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