Tag: nature

signs of spring

To be frank, despite the post title, I don’t think I’ve seen many signs of spring yet this year. But I did open the kitchen door wide on Friday morning to a bright early morning and think perhaps the air smelt fresher and milder. Then, of course, there was cold rain later on and yesterday brought sleet, although not the heavy snow that had been forecast.

Of course spring, like most of the seasons, is a wonderfully confusing concept: when does it actually begin?
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joy on the journey

I’m going to have to face up to the fact that my eyesight is not what it was. I’ve been wearing glasses with varifocal lenses for the best part of two years and I don’t think that hour after hour of Zoom and Skype meetings this year has helped at all. So when I was out for a walk the other day and spotted what appeared to be a hedge full of spiders, I didn’t really believe that’s what it would be, and approached, albeit cautiously.

It wasn’t spiders, it was seedheads.
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autumnal colours

It’s the time of year when all the blogs and social media feeds of the northern hemisphere are filled with spectacular photos of trees and leaves in wonderful autumnal colours – all warm red, rust and russet, yellow and orange vermilion. Personally, I have a bit of a problem with this.

I don’t deny that the leaves turn colour. But it seems that when I stop to take a photo of what looks like a promising heap of leaves, on closer inspection it’s actually a muddy pile of decay, quickly turning into mulch.
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nature lessons

When I was a child, my family used to attend church regularly. The minister was a kind man who cycled round the town as he said it put him in closer contact with his parishioners than driving a car would. I don’t know how the adults felt about him, but I was a shy little girl and he must have been one of the few men I trusted.

Perhaps what I remember most is that he had a story for every occasion and could turn any situation into a learning experience without it coming across as heavy-handed or didactic.
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great oaks

They say great oaks from little acorns grow. Certainly the acorns I saw on my walk yesterday have triggered a chain of thought, which I think is likely to result in a a blog post of some length.

First of all, the first time I tried to translate that gem of traditional English wisdom into Spanish, I was met with blank stares.

Apparently, what I thought of as an acorn – una bellota – was never going to grow up into an oak tree – un roble. It was going to grow into an encina, which is a holm oak and, it seems, to those who raise livestock on the Spanish dehesa, that’s a pig of a very different colour.
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