Warning There in the mud, the first snowdrop of the season. And, yes, glove in teeth, I make the dog sit so I can photograph it. Look at this. #springiscoming. Only it isn’t true. I have learned that this little dancer with her blue-green skirt is only here to fool me, for sport. Come on, […]
One day in May – 100 words
One day in May The path you walk is impossible, no longer a path, really blocked by unfurling ferns and a jungle of nettles. Brave bluebells bounce but you can’t get near enough for that Instagrammable blue blur – the brambles are a thicket and salady fresh new nettles sprawl upwards. All the weeks […]
Wishing – 100 words
Wishing I saw the first lamb of the year trotting, cute in the field. It makes me want to gambol too. And daffodils poking yellow noses past half-dead weeds from last year. I scan the scrubby edges for evidence that my civilising bulbs are growing to paint grubby verges with vermillion and a deep ecclesiastical […]
Moldewarp – 100 words
Moldewarp What is a molehill? An inconsequential pile of soil, sifted and airy, like baking flour, field acne, rashing across the grass. It’s raining – but subterranean, who cares? Talipidae are busy: worm-trap tunnels bear fruit mole spit paralyses and underground larders fill with the once squirming. Peckish predators squeeze supper until earthy guts squidge […]
Harbingers – 100 words
Harbingers Every year they come: tender white heads peeping from green swaddling. Vulnerable necks. They tell us it’s true: months of winter waiting is worth it. Buds and blossom and bloody dandelions will follow, with blooming certainty. We’ve made it through the darkest. Head cocked in the dawn – listening to creatures waking, rustling and […]