April 30th – Yes, spring continues although the expected weather has still failed to turn up for the gig.
Spotted in Pleck, Walsall, near the Scarborough Road bridge, a momma Mallard proudly marshalls her new ducklings away from the inquisitive human and to apparent safety.
First hatchlings I’ve seen this year. Always a joy to the heart.
April 28th – A grey, cold afternoon at Chasewater with little to commend it: On a quick spin out shivering and cold, they light was hauntingly grey over the lake. I notice the water level is falling gradually now with it now being about 75mm below the outfall spillway weir.
The gorse is beautiful, the hedgerows verges and thickets were alive with flowers, birds and wildlife, but there was little colour because of the awful weather.
Come on spring, we won’t mind if you wake the sun up!
April 25th – The weather is still quite intemperate, but improving. Temperatures climbed at the weekend, then sank again, but on the whole it’s been a drier week – but windier – although the sun too has been welcome.
This improvement has meant trees are now well into the greening phase and it’s starting to look like summer is coming.
With blue skies and emerald embankments and hedgerows, the canal is looking gorgeous again.
It’s a pleasure to see.
April 25th – One of the sadnesses of the season is how short lived the blossom is – it’s there, and gone in a blaze of colour, then shed petals and confetti, then… nothing. A more transient example of the season’s wheel you could not find.
At the moment, the blossom is just starting to end, but passing these two intertwined trees on the cycleway to Priorslee in Telford always fascinates me as it looks like one tree with two different colours of blossom.
I love how, even when fresh, the pink one looks like bright but tattered tissue paper.
Such a lovely, but all to quickly passing, time of year…
April 23rd – Later that same day, a visit to Telford saw me hauling up the cycleway to Priorslee. A few short weeks ago this view was barren and grey.
Once more this byway is turning into a beautiful tunnel of verdant green.
I love how spring and summer can make even the most dystopian of places beautiful.
April 22nd – One of the loveliest things about this time of year is falling petals from trees in blossom.
Like nature’s own confetti, it celebrates the coming of warm days, sunshine and light.
To see this delicate beauty, driving in swirls on the breeze, dappling grass and decorating you as you pass is a joy to the heart.
I just wish it wasn’t over so quickly!
April 21st – I don’t think I’ve ever known a spring like this – someone has fired a starting gun, and on this generally sunny afternoon ride to Burton so many flowers were either out or coming out that it was astounding.
I have never seen hawthorn in flower at the same time as blackthorn. The wild garlic is out when there are still daffodils. Bluebells are about too. It’s absolutely gorgeous out there.
A long, sunny afternoon ride, stopping to inspect the flowers was just what I needed.
How I love this time of year.
April 20th – And so, spring is on her throne at last and summer is booting up.
The speed at which this has happened this year – in no more that a week – has been startling and rather wonderful.
Every day new discoveries, and whilst yesterday, the blossom was just starting, this morning it was showing strongly.
How long I have waited for the light, the warmth and the wonderful burst of life. It was worth the wait.
April 17th – Every day, new flowers and leaves. This is fantastic, and just what I’ve been waiting for. All I need now is the sun to do it’s thing…
Spotted in a roadside verge near Lower Stonnall on Gravelly Lane – one of my all time favourite spring flowers – muscari or grape hyacinth. A garden favourite, I’m not sure if they’re native here or a garden escapee. But they are so very gorgeous, tiny blue arrangements of even tinier obovoid flowers.
Welcome back.
April 13th – I rode to work in steady rain heavy hearted. It’s not often I say this but the morning had no redeeming features I could find; it was wet, cold and very, very unlike spring. 2013 was a pretty bad spring, starting very late with heavy snows in the dying days of March like this one. But at least the sun came out and things dramatically improved. 2018 has tested even my usually stoical resolve, I must say.
Rolling through Kings Hill on an errand mid morning, everything was headache-grey – the roads, the buildings, the sky.
It’s rare I feel so bleak about the weather.
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