SPRING AT WOOLHAMPTON

Blog by Susie Bedford

(Pen name, writing poetry and novels is Lynne Pearl)

Website https:lynnepearl.com

April- May 23

SPRING at DOUAI

It is Spring in Berkshire and we’re high up above the main Bath road on a ridge that overlooks the railway and everything else. Up here they breed race horses that go to Newbury and race for the world. My Dad loved the horses and so I did too, it was the kind of enthusiasm that was catching. I never rode but I loved the horses, the race and everything to do with it. Today I see that there is Point to Point announced for April 26 Sunday across fields high above the sea. We used to go too, but the first love is the race with the jockeys’ colours the wonderful names of the horses and the specialty of the breeder. There was a book on the form and the wonderful horses for the year. It was all completely infectious. We would go and sit outside the racing area with a picnic and the sound of the horses racing was in background, and the crowds cheering.

HAWTHORNE BLOSSOM

But today it was quieter, it was Spring coming so slowly to Berkshire and the country after a cold long time. So when you see a spangle of hawthorn blossom on a dark hedge you are excited because that means hope, hope springing up again, that this cold can change, in fact everything can change, so let’s keep going, you never know what might be around the corner. In fact, the Hawthorne is the first. I remember the image from Cicely Barker’s flower fairies of the trees, the image for Spring, Hawthorne announcing it.

WALKING THE BRIDLEWAYS

This is a Spring walk in Berks and even in the woods there are no bluebells yet. I know exactly where the bluebells should come in the woods, I have seen them year after year. They aren’t there yet, just this misty hawthorne blossom. There are bridle ways here, daffodils beside them and that’s testament to how many horses are up here on the ridge. They don’t have footpaths, they have bridle paths, so you do listen out for the jingle of the bridle and that sound like no other, of hooves on a muddy path, a thud that comes out of the past, our past from before we thought of cars. But the horses are still here so there are paths for them.

THE TREES ON THE SKYLINE

The trees here look bigger than anywhere else. Is the weather kinder, better, is the soil richer, or is it that there is a different species up here. The branches reach to the sky and obscure the skyline with their blooming upwards.

RHODODENDRON ON EXMOOR

The rhododendron is beginning here too. They’re splendid on Exmoor, a statement of glory, waiting and never, not ever giving up because the best is yet to come. Here’s a hidden bush beside an old school that is long quiet, it had been a hospital long ago up here where the air is good.

SPRING VIOLETS

I find violets, tiny under the pine tree that houses the rooks by the main drive. They are just tiny dots, and then a find a cultivated rhododendron bus like handkerchiefs, unlike anything else in nature. There are trees here whose blossoms spray upwards like the sea foam, and there are fruiting trees that need the bees to come.

OLD MAN WILLOW

There is also an Old Man Willow here that is just beginning, as if he heard the notes of Spring and decided to put a push on but then hesitated and is now waiting for a better moment. So the leaves are very gently there, of the palest green. Underneath is the perfect bench for looking at the tiny fronds that are the beginning, just like us.