Spring Break

I’ve been waiting for Spring before I stuck my words above ground, but what with the delay of that and the fact that melancholy had seeped into me like treacle over the winter, filling my veins and slowing my pace, four months have shot past before I’ve used my computer for anything but work.

Now I’m not one to wish my life away but I was so glad to see the back of 2012 and to be honest I’m still not sure the Mayans did get their dates wrong, the world kept turning but there were times last year it felt like mine was ending but more of that in a later post.

Late though it is, Spring has been doing its best, stabbing at Winters hold with its knife of colour, the blade is still quite dull but seems to be sharpening now with everyday that goes by, bringing more and more coloured highlights to the cuts from below while lengthening the days by peeling back the nights. However, winter hasn't quite given up, healing the wounds with an occasional covering of snow or washing them clean with an icy downpour or two.

I seem to have often talked about weather and it's odd behaviour over the last few springs, but possibly this is the new norm and not odd at all. I think the term is ‘global weirding’ not about hot or cold, wet or dry, just the crazy pendulum swings between them. Anyway the daffodils on our front verge, usually as predictable as can be, took forever to come into flower this year and then rushed through their glorious golden grin in a week and are now brown and battered. I think from the look of things we may be leaping over spring and landing feet first in summer, but lets wait and see.

Some wise soul told me that we’re a month behind, which seems about right but with a couple of sunny weekends at last, I’ve finally mown the lawns, planted a few plants and visited one of my favourite seasonal markers.

It was good to see that even my old friend has finally got into the spirit of things and is bristling with leaf buds.

This old tree sits in the Lady Hills. Now why these fields of lumps and bumps, dips and scrapes has this name I don’t know, but I used to visit them in another life, where, the hills seemed as high as mountains and the dips as deep as gorges and all of it  a long way away from home in Aby.

There was a story told about the fairy ring that sits on the higher plain that it was the site of a child sacrifice, the victim’s handprint still frozen in a stone at its centre. I’m sure this is just one of those things made up by kids to scare other kids, probably started by one of my siblings in fact, but whatever the source, it certainly used to work on me, many a time did I dally too long and had to race the night home, chased by my own beating heart.

Anyway, we still use these hills for sledging in the winter, the occasional picnic in the summer or for me chatting to the tree all year round.

Now he’s a great listener so good in fact to that rudely I’ve never bothered to ask what type of tree he is, as usual always too busy am I talking about myself.

He seems to have grown for purpose, roots twisted and exposed forming an ergonomic seat perfect for surveying the landscape from his vantage point on the top of the hill, branches drop low for shade and close enough to hear your whispers.

The land next too him drops away into a scrape, which he stretches an arm over to hold the rope swing that dangles over the drop. No one seems to know, or at least own up to tying it on there but it has had various guises over the years, even at one point having a comfy carseat attached. 

On this particular occasion as I chatted away to him, I thought this tree so old what tales he must have to tell, stories of hope and honour, dreams and deaths, lives lived or those full of regrets. These secrets kept with a hush of his leaves, or struck dumb within winters freeze, or shook with a golden sigh to the floor, I do wonder if all this discretion is rewarded, who does he tell his problems to.

Does a memory have a memory of you, as you have of it.  

A spring of consciousness

I have a smile on my verge at the moment if not on my face, a sunny grin that spreads across the  cottage, a yellow sigh that I share with birds, insects and animals alike. Its handover time for the seasons, the daffs are in full bloom and the clocks have gone forward.  

I love the rag tag look of early Spring, full of promise like a bad haircut that's finally growing out. The wet fields that sucked your wellies from your feet, have dried, the roadsides are dotted with ready made bunches of daffodils, like jolly hair plugs on a balding celebrity. 

Custard coloured  primrose nestle in the dikes and hedgerows, taking over from those early risers the snow drops who have nodded off ready for a well deserved rest. Dandelions burn like little Suns in the grass and lost looking hyacinth add a dash of pastel colour in the sea of green and yellow.

While some trees wear pink frothy perms of blossom others are still seemingly bare until closer inspection reveals designer stubble, leaf buds waiting to burst out of the end of every branch and twig.

The lambs are in the field cutting a fine dash compared to the shaggy unkempt look of their hardworking mothers and best of all the days are long and light.

I'd never say that I was well read but probably well watched, I think this comes from my interest, or is that panic about time, trying to preserve a moment in the library of the mind, find words that fix an image to the page. I want to enjoy every moment of the light nights, feeling a guilt if I go in before its dark.

The garden beckons 

Spring is in my mind

So February passed with its traditional drag of cold and hope, March arrived and left like a lamb as best recalled, leaving its customary smear of yellow.

The daffodils on the front verge that collect so many admiring looks, creating a smile on the ground as well as on the faces of the passers by, seemed to be more abundant than ever. It’s a pity but I can’t own the compliments this crowd of yellow flowers bring, as along with a lot of the plants at Belleau Cottage, they were here when we bought the place nine years ago. We moved in, in September so the daffodils were a fabulous spring surprise the following year and have never failed to delight ever since.

Over the last few weeks I’ve emerged from my depressed stasis, popped my head above ground and got on with some garden jobs, mostly surveying what has survived the winter, the worst winter since blah blah and all that.

I think that part of the problem was the mildness right up to the cold snap a lot of my plants were still in bloom in November, providing perfect little platforms for the falling snow to rest on.

Now a couple of things about my gardening skills or lack of them, mostly I have no idea what I’m doing, but love doing it anyway. The nature, the nurture and the power of the plant, the happy accidents and the tingle in my tum I get from new shoots and buds.

As corny as it sounds, I like the honest labour, where the results shine out from the boarders, especially having a job where the fruits of my effort are becoming less satisfying and more and more unappreciated.

I think the way I garden is much more shop floor than managerial which suits my working class roots and faltering ambition.

I’m not neat and like my garden to have some sort of wild order at best.