Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

A largish adder suns itself on the path, until becoming aware I'm watching it and making off  into the marshy grass.

Despite this, we lie happily under the flowering crabtree.

Up the road, afternoon.

Here and there in the verges there is a bright yellow buttercup standing out among the crowds of stitchwort, like a glossy fried egg yoke standing out from the white.    

No. 501 - Up the road early evening.

[ I just noticed that before this recent pause in activity here, I had reached 500 posts.  I have appreciated the combination of discipline and indulgence which this blog has offered me, and with the change of season and renewed resolve, I'll try to write here more regularly now.]

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Ash and oak, splash or soak, seem to be about neck and neck here, so who knows what we'll get?  The leaves everywhere are catching rapid fire, a greening blaze.

Up the road, afternoon.

Spring is put on hold.  Everywhere is covered in a cold white layer of cloud, and the wind is chill.  Yet the dandelions are bursting yellow suns in the fields.

Down the road, late afternoon.

For the first time this year, sandals, rather over-optimistic.  As the muckspreading tractor passes, we step onto the verge, and I receive my first nettle sting of the year too.

Up the road, afternoon

The swallows have been here for a week or so, but silently, feeding and restoring their strength.  Today they are singing, coming together in flittering displays as they swoop upward.

Water mill, Guettes-es-Lievres, morning.

The daffodils stretch up and out of sight.  With the light behind them, they glow like yellow stars, I feel as if we are walking through galaxies of them.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

It is the translucency of spring blossoms, the prayer flags of magnolia and the silver and gold luminescence of willow catkins, as they dance and spar with wind and light...

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon.

The brambles never quite lose their leaves, so that the springing bright green new shoots stand out over last year's bottle brown and purple ones, leathery and mined by insects.

Up the road, afternoon.

That's the cold hard southerly wind we sometimes get at this time of year, blowing in flashes of sun and splashes of rain, and rippling the surface of the puddles.

Up the road, afternoon.

The Limousin bull and his cows are suddenly frisky, high-tailing around the field, butting and rubbing necks and foreheads.  There seems no violence and little sex involved, just high spirits.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon.

Swallows, wheeling over the water, accompanied by sand martins.  I don't remember that they've made me cry before.  I understand that somewhere I doubted, this time, they'd still come back.

Up the road, and right, past the water tower, morning.

It's an unlovely route in many ways, agricultural dereliction, but its unfamiliarity renders it  interesting, and we get to talk to the donkey, who is skittish and wary of us.

Trédaniel plan d'eau, afternoon.

The bare, still wintry stems of the dogwood are one yellow, like sulphur, faded, matt and greenish, while the daffodils and the pompoms of witchhazel are another, new and glowing.

Quessoy arboretum, afternoon.

To watch the water flowing towards the bridge makes you feel crowded and pressured, on the other side, watching it flow away, brings release and lightness. Try it and see!