Last week’s consolation prize of peace and quiet has been superseded by the princess and the pea-like irritation of not being able, ever, to find a slot for getting supermarket stuff delivered or even click&collected. So while Rosie struggled this week with finding alternative ways of feeding the two of us, my contribution, apart from giving those clothes pegs another wash, was to entertain the dogs by taking them on ever-longer walks.
And it’s surprising what you notice if you keep your eyes well and truly open. For example, the variance in the colour of leaves of the same variety of tree. Take the sycamore (on the left) and the beech (on the right)…each leaf was plucked from a neighbouring tree on the same day, but see how they differ. Yet in a few weeks they’ll all mutate to exactly the same tone of green. I know that for sure because I observed the same waggish behaviour of Mother Nature last year.
Blossom too. Why is one year so luxuriant, another so barren? This year’s a corker though and it has to be down to the weather. But a surfeit of sun last summer? An excess of rain since the autumn? A mild winter? Or perhaps it’s God’s way of cheering us up? Maybe we should all just enjoy it while it lasts and try not to think about Waitrose.
Meantime wildlife, like Spring, continues regardless, thank goodness. Willy Wagtail obsessively rebuilding last year’s nest, a pigeon usurping the smaller birds’ drinking water and a tit nicking my precious walnut fruit buds. And Rosie thinks she’s the only one with problems.
