Hello Friends!
I'm doing my best now to get out and about to revel in the glorious Spring weather. It's been a long winter for all of us. I have always carried my camera, but lately have been relying on my phone. However, I've now started taking the camera as well. Won't you come along?
Walking is so much more to me than fresh air and exercise. I love strolling along finding things to capture with my camera, but I also find walking is so very good for my spirit too. Who could not be uplifted when surrounded by such natural beauty?
Right now, the spring weather is incredible. Each day brings crystal clear blue skies, often cloudless, just blue from horizon to horizon. Everything seems cleaner and clearer, colours are sharper than I ever recall. Birdsong is sharper and chirpier, and the heady scent of spring blossoms is intoxicating. I don't know if this is because of the lack of air pollution as a result of Covid travel restrictions, or if it is because I have been hunkered down, indoors, for most of the year, only venturing into the village for my monthly prescription, scurrying along with my head down. Whatever the reason, it's a pure delight for the senses.
The only down side is we're not getting any rain, and although it's wonderful to be dry when working in the garden, I'm already having to water, and my lawn is yellowing up not so nicely. April showers did not come, so will we see the flowers that bloom in May? None of us ever thought we'd be crying out for rain in April.
The wind that blows is coming from the east and north, a cold and drying wind, that chills to the bone, and the sea does not whip into the usual frenzy of white horses we see when it blows more warmly from the south and the west. Bands of calm, still, blue ocean and a cloudless blue sky contrast against lush, verdant green pastures where the candy floss puffy, fluffy cotton creamy sheep graze, somehow anchored firmly, for they look as if they'd just blow away on the breeze.
Rich, yellow gorse, and dreamy, bridal white blackthorn border the ancient stone walls that form the enclosures and fields that spread across the Shire like a big, patchwork quilt of viridescent green.
The blackthorn will bring forth sloes, later in the year, and many a bottle of sloe gin will be maturing over the autumn months ready to warm the cockles of our hearts on a long, cold walk in winter. My hip flask is ready and waiting! We'll raise a glass to absent friends on Christmas Day while sitting around the fire.
We've had a little rain overnight, just enough to wash the dust away, but it's all change this weekend. Wouldn't you know it? May Day Bank Holiday weekend and Bank Holiday Monday is set to bring forth heavy rain {not good when the ground is so dry as it will run off and not soak in} and gale force winds {ugh}. So, I'm making the most of the lovely days, and once more the old familiar routing of battening hatches happens. It's the visitors and holiday makers I feel for, with limited places open to visitors, what will they do? Sit in their holiday accommodation, or wander around in the wild, windy, wet Welsh weather?
This is a beautiful post, Deb, full of wonderful photos and well written, too. Being outside walking is always a great pleasure for me, too. The weather here is too cold and too dry, but we're supposed to be getting rain and storms this week. Whatever, have a good and safe week! , Valerie
ReplyDeleteThank you, Valerie. It's been a wild and windy weekend and still blowing! Have a good week! Deb
DeleteIsn't perception a strange thing? I've just been bemoaning the 'dreadful' cold weather.
ReplyDeleteI love the cooler days, I'm far more productive than I am in the heat.
DeleteA lovely post and I so enjoyed coming on your walk with you. What a wonderful place you live in - the views and scenery are wonderful. It is so lovely to see gorse and blackthorn in flower. Your photos are gorgeous - all those blue skies :) Hope the gales and rain are not too bad.
ReplyDeleteThank you. The weather has been awful, I think right across the UK, but hopefully on it's way out now. Still blowing too much today, though, to do anything outside.
DeleteThanks for taking your camera and us along for this walk. You have such lovely views and hopefully your garden will get some much-needed rain soon enough. And, hopefully the rain will not ruin the planned holidays of many people. Some places are also closed or with late openings here on the few getaways we have taken within New England.
ReplyDeleteWe had plenty of rain, that's for certain.
DeleteI loved this walk, Deb. You live in beautiful country -- that gorse and blackthorn are especially striking. I'm sorry you are getting weekend rain. We need rain here a great deal. We've had some today but it has been more like gentle showers (and cold, temps, gloomy skies) -- nothing that will really help the plants much. We had such a warm weekend and now cold. I don't know what's up with the weather but I wish it would make up its mind!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jeanie. We got our rain, and like you, I wish the weather would make up it's mind. Someone needs to remind Spring to get out of bed and stop hitting snooze!
DeleteI have enjoyed reading about your country walks with the lovely pictures and your descriptive way of writing is a pleasure to read. The countryside there is so different from what we have here in coastal Maine where Spring is finally emerging into daffodils and forsythias bright yellows. We are used to rain and gales though.❤️
ReplyDeleteThank you, Susan, for your kind words. We're used to rain and gales here too, so this Spring has been unusually calm for us.
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