A time of greening

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's amazing how quickly the countryside changes as Spring takes hold. A slight rise in temperature, a sprinkling of spring rain and suddenly there are bright green leaves everywhere. It is a time of blossoming too - Spring brings many beautiful floral colours but my favourites are the frothy white blossoms that so many plants both big and small have at this time of year; hawthorn (May blossom), horse chestnut, wild cherry, apples and pears, white nettle, cow parsley, daisies and ramsons all are looking their beautiful best right now.

I headed to Hobby horse wood near Hertford Heath in search of woodland anemones, but was too late to see them at their best - I shall have to visit earlier next year. But at the orchard nature reserve in nearby Tewin the woods were carpeted with wild garlic and the fruit trees were in full blossom and buzzing with bees and trilling with bird song - I managed to get a picture of the elusive tree-creeper, though his head is out of focus because he never seems to keep still as he spirals up trunks in search of small insects.

Spring is in full glory out there and as I've been wandering and enjoying the white blossoms on my walks, I've been hearing the words of this poem and appreciating its sentiment,

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

 

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

 

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

 

A. E. Houseman, A Shropshire Lad 2