April 5th – The season is moving on at such a pace now, it’s very hard to keep up. Another first this morning near Clayhanger Common, my first bluebells of 2017 in a patch of spring snowflakes. Yes, they’re Spanish rather than their more delicate English cousins, but that dash of blue-violet is unmistakable and soon the woods and hedgerows will be a rash of vivid colour once more.
Welcome back, old friends.
March 13th – This is a terrible photo, and sorry about that, but the mood I was in precluded concentrating on image quality; but the subject did very much cheer me up. On the way home, I rode up Shire Oak Hill from Stonnall in the dark. Since I was tired and not 100%, I rode up the pavement, as I feared my speed would not keep with the traffic. It was then I noticed them.
Loads of clumps of beautiful, white spring snowflakes – leucojum vernum- which are very like snowdrops, but the blooms are more bell shaped, the plants taller, with more foliage. Each flower has tiny green tips to the petals which the harshness of the flash sadly stripped away in the photo.
These gorgeous flowers grow in increasing numbers in this spot every year and they always surprise me. Today, on this dark and weary night, they were a real tonic.
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 