If this header photo makes you feel shivery, then that’s how it feels today in Shropshire (21 April ‘24). We don’t have ice, outside or on the windows. And the only snow we’ve had
was back in March, and nothing like the winter white-out we had a few years ago (second photo).
But today the air, beneath a bank of sullen cloud, has a razor’s edge. When, at midday, I went to check on things in the greenhouse, I was glad I’d put on a second woolly jumper. And even that wasn’t warmth enough; still the cold crept into my bones.
What is going on? We’re three parts through April, yet the soil is cold. I keep putting off planting the seed potatoes; leaving them chitting on the potting bench. Soon they’ll be more chit than spud.
And yet, when the sun does shine, as it did yesterday, you could almost believe it was spring. (This should tell us something elemental about what warms the earth. The presence of SUNSHINE). The tulips are certainly saying spring; and the mass of wild flowers on the lane verges say so too: the star-like stitchwort, cowslips, primroses, Jack by the Hedge, the gaudy hoards of dandelions…
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And the trees are bursting into leaf, the first flush of greens tinted bronze and pinky-purple and pale gold:
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And then the farm hedges are white with blackthorn, and the farm fields bright acid yellow with oil seed rape flowers:
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And in the garden the lilac buds are forming and the apple blossom full-on:
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Meanwhile on the house renovation front, we are very glad, (what with the persisting coldness) that the roof is now restored:
and that we’re almost done with the conservatory demolition. This is the floor:
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And that our hero builder has cleaned off and saved over three hundred bricks from the dismantling to use on the extended exterior.
For now they’re stacked on the garden wall, making their own installation:
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With all that’s going on, I’m also thinking that a state of abstraction is good place to be just now. So many thanks to Ritva at Lens-Artists for this interesting approach.
Lens-Artists: Abstracts This week Ritva gives us abstracts. Go see her post and be inspired.
