Breakfast on the lawn. A jug of coffee and fresh cut orange and apple with toasted nuts. And at last the sun on our skin. A sense of bliss after the dark, wet months.

Overhead, in the big blue, jackdaws drift from their roost to all points and back again. No reason necessary. Far off, too, above the town, white glints catch my eye. They shimmer like foil reflecting the sun, and soon, drawing near, take form: a pair of buzzards in their best feathers. It’s the white underwing that catches the light. They glide by. A pair. Aerial synchrony. It looks like a slow pas de deux.

And next comes the red kite, Shropshire’s largest raptor. Sipping our coffee we lean back to watch. It’s far up, the tell-tale V of the tail feathers, the wide wingspan. We almost take such sights for granted now. The sparrows, though, dash for cover in the holly hedge. And that’s when, gaze lowered, I notice the brimstone butterfly. Wings of pale apple green, it’s flitting about the garden at high speed. Then up and away over the fence, across the street and into the Thorntons’ garden. It’s the second I’ve spotted this week. I don’t recall ever seeing brimstones before.

Along the garden path there’s a continuous sprinkling of cherry plum blossoms. The ice pink petals fall like slow snow flakes. On days like this the tree looks its festive best against the sky. It’s not our tree but grows near our hedge, casting the new spring garden of daffodils and hellebores in dappled light.

And so with the sun and the blue sky all seems hopeful, bountiful, beneficent, and I breathe a long slow breath. Muscles soften. Winter tensions dissolve. Here, in our small garden world, spring is happening.

copyright 2026 Tish Farrell

Lens-Artists: Time to relax  This week Anne at Slow Shutter Speed wants to know what helps us relax.