Tag: seasons

signs and portents

There’s hazy sunshine this morning and I suspect that when I finally get ready and go out it will feel like spring.

I’m pretty sure, though, that the blossoms I photographed in full sunshine at lunchtime a couple of days ago will have been battered to a pulp by storms by now.

Even today, if I diddle around too long, fussing about what to wear and writing the blog etc., it’s quite possible that the weather will have changed completely and it will be bucketing down with rain and blowing a force ten gale.
Continue reading “signs and portents”

invasion

I re-watched the 1978 version of The Invasion of the Body-snatchers last night and was much taken by this brief dialogue:

Elizabeth Driscoll: I have seen these flowers all over. They are growing like parasites on other plants all of a sudden. Where are they coming from?

Nancy Bellicec: Outer space?

Jack Bellicec: What are you talking about? A space flower?

Nancy Bellicec: Well why not a space flower? Why do we always expect metal ships?

Jack Bellicec: I’ve NEVER expected metal ships.

Continue reading “invasion”

winter magic

I was delighted to find snow drops on my walk into town yesterday, but they were only just coming into flower, so I didn’t get any good pictures. Perhaps there will be more next weekend.

I also I found this strange leafless shrub, with flowers the colour of forsythia or winter jasmine. I knew the lack of leaves meant it couldn’t be the latter, but I wondered whether it might be a very early forsythia whose petals had become deformed because it had blossomed too early.

As usual, Google has provided the answer: it is in fact witch hazel. If that doesn’t count as winter magic, I don’t know what does.

stealth visitor

While Thursday arrived draped in pink chiffon, this morning I heard the muffled sound of an engine and Friday drove up in a car the colour of fog.

 
 

fair weather flowers

I don’t know when I first heard the saying “God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December”**, but it made sense to me as I was brought up in Britain and grew up thinking of the rose as the perfect symbol of English summer.

Later, I realised that I was wrong to think of the flower as typically English: I’ve seen the Rose Parade in Pasadena and elsewhere on the blog I’ve pondered the character of Spanish roses. But I still tend to associate roses with better weather.

That said, I took the above photo earlier this week.

True, the blooms are a little the worse for wear – if I was remembering a rose, I think I’d picture one in rather better condition. Frankly, though, I don’t think they should have been there at all.

—————-
** The quote is attributed to J M Barrie, though when he used it in a rectorial address in 1922 he seems to have expected his audience to be familiar with it.