THE ORCHARD DIARY 3rd Month
May 9 25
Blog by Lynne Pearl
The trees are more awake in fact I think they are now just about fully awake. It’s quite exciting.
They have realised it’s time to wake up.
The yellow irises are out. They make a big show from far off. They are big bold beautiful flowers. I walk in the drive and there they are surrounding the trees in the orchard.
The trees are just beginning their leaf time but they aren’t quite out yet, these are tentative beginnings of bigger leaves to come.
There is one path that leads the length of the orchard and runs parallel to the drive in. At the end is a door but I don’t know where it leads to as the lane, Ottery Moor Lane is just the other side of it. It is in full bloom with tall tall Queen Anne’s Lace or Meadowsweet it is called. It has the most wonderful perfume on the warm winds that come in May.
The Irises have a very delicate perfume too… The purple ones seem to come first and they are followed by the yellow all together. We always had irises in our garden. My Mum must have known how to grow them.
And here’s a poem inspired by a train ride in Spring time:
LETTER FROM THE LOOE LINE
Valley,
Gorge of yellow leaves
Dark green holly,
Ferns and sheep grazing.
Viaduct, slim. Elegant like a suit
Then trees, bare, silent
Wait, sleep.
Secret road to who knows
Along valley line.
Gold beech, at Coombe House
Says a sign,
But there is no house,
Just a crag of a castle
On a hilltop in the distance.
Then train manager marches through
To his driver’s seat
And we pull out to somewhere to wait.
Guard in the hut looks hopefully upline.
He’s boarding the train,
We move off
This time on the lower line,
Past sewer works,
Lodge Farm
More secret places
Known to no one,
Glimpsed and gone.
Horses graze in early morning blankets
(I miss the horses in the orchard at Butleigh home.)
Past whistle stops, more autumn leaves,
A bubbling stream, white
Running to the sea.
Tickets, given, inspected.
‘Perfect, a job on the rails.’
Stream moves faster now beside us
Broader,
Then big houses
Overlook
Waterfall, full, whiteness in the black water.
A forest surrounds us,
Saplings, ivy covered fallen trees.
Grey stone houses, whitewash
At Sandplace
Ancient trees,
Swathes of hillside, few remaining leaf
Gold, russet.
An estuary,
Bulrushes, reed beds,
Wreck lists in greying mud.
Heron, white against mud
Fishes in low tide stream,
Estuary widens to gash,
Valley
Two more herons, one great grey,
Gnarled trunks
A moon landscape
Opens and we approach houses.
There’s the river, the dock
And a bridge.
Hours pass
On the way back
The light plays on the mud and the estuary.
Great heron still stands.
Rocks, mud, reeds
Trees gnarled
Deep to secret places
Within.
With names like Causeland, St Keyne, Coombe Junction.
And deep within there is a scarecrow of a Prince.
