seasonal

cowslip flowers close up
British Summer Time starts today, which meant I got up early – by the clock, at least. I still haven’t adapted to living in the UK again, so I headed off to the 24-hour supermarket in the naïve expectation that it would be open. Of course it wasn’t.

Today is Easter Sunday and big stores are closed.
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holidays and holy days

Nowadays, most people seem to overlook Good Friday, but I thought it was an excuse to leave my desk for a while.

It’s been a glorious sunny day, but I didn’t take my camera when I went out, so rather than my usual habit of seeing things through a lens darkly, I actually looked directly at all the yellow flowers of spring: the daffodils peeking over garden walls, the primroses nestling in the uncut grass, the brighter yellow of celandines and, perhaps brightest of all, the shaggy-maned dandelions.

This lovely camellia stood out as such a different colour that I was tempted to try and capture it on my phone.

pink camellia bloom
With wind and rain forecast for tomorrow, I don’t think those blossoms will last long, so I am glad I was brought up to think of Good Friday as a holiday.

spring again – again

It was a dull day in the park yesterday, but amid the grey there were a couple of brighter images: there were a few pools of daffodil yellow and the willows along by the river were gauzy with green, waiting for day or two of sunshine to turn them into a mass of caterpillar catkins.

Willow trees in spring time

There was also this magnificent flower which I think must be a Helleborus Orientalis hybrid, perhaps a Red Lady. I presume from the fact today is Palm Sunday it can be classified as a Lenten Rose:
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spring again

white blossom

It’s a grey day and bitterly cold, but tonight is the spring equinox, which is as good an opportunity as any to post some seasonal photos and re-post a seasonal poem.
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counting chickens

The train’s delayed and while I wait,
I gauge my luck – or lack thereof –
in magpies: the furl of caping wings,
and splay-tailed swoop to perch
high in the winter cage of track-side trees
whose trunks are evergreened by ivy.

 
The magpies were too far away to get a photo, but this blackbird seemed to think that if he sat still enough I wouldn’t notice him.

blackbird in bare branches