How many “Springs” will you be able to enjoy in one lifetime? 

Houseman in his poem “The Shropshire Lad” has a young man of twenty suddenly waking  up to that idea.   He realises that of his three score years and ten of allotted life years he has already had 20 Springs!

Better enjoy and value each one left then.

Yes!  Love Love Love Spring.  That promise, that renewal, that bursting forth of green energy.  The deadness of winter lifting its grey cloud duvet and peering out with optimism.

Even better in someways in the North of the UK. It doesnt burst out in one week up here. It takes its time.   When I lived in Connecticut it seemed so strange. The spring there travelled up the East Coast, about 100 miles a week. Its progress reported on the news!   Snow one week, glorious  flowers the next.

It made me realise how much I enjoy the subtle delicacy, hints and promise of the UK Spring. Here  in Glasgow Spring has a long lingering foreplay. Little hints emerge, a catkin, a celandine, the slightly reddish green tinge at the ends of bare branches. The first primroses, a coltsfoot…

New nettles!

In my childhood they were always welcomed.  Picked with careful hands and turned into Nettle Soup or cooked like spinach.  Mother used to say that they would clear your skin.  She didnt know it, but she was actually passing on very sensible folklore. Towards the end of winter people were living mainly on stored root vegetables, many on the edge of getting scurvy for lack of greens.  Nettles and early Hawthorne leaves were very very welcome and essential.

 

Early Spring wanders looking for new life are such a joy. That slow awakening of everything til the humming blazing riot of late April and May.

I have had Thirteen Extra Springs to wonder at. All absolute free and a delightful gift. Cant be sure at 83 if there will be another. But how lucky we are, this new generation of Older People.  We have been given bonus Springs!

So wallow, wander, photograph and enjoy this one.  Every day check the purple copper beech I can see from our window.

The slow bronze haze is creeping over it. Doesn’t look much yet, but in a few weeks it will be aflame.

Today, the sun of Easter Sunday  is for heading off to the River Kelvin, to a rocky ex quarry bank which last year was a wall of primroses.  Last week already spotted the Few Flowered Leeks that grow in abundance along the banks here. So fragile and pretty in masses.

Looking forward to next year, but feeling so very very lucky having this gorgeous Spring of 2019 to delight in.