English Spring

Thank you to all who kept in contact with us in various ways over the past few months. It's been a weird kind of year for us and as you may have noticed, we haven't blogged for a while. Maybe we'll be able to get back into the swing of things now...

This blog is fast becoming a comment on British weather. But we cannot let Spring get away without comment. It is one of the beautiful aspects of British life. It comes on the heels of winter, with all its sparse greyness and cold. Mostly we quite enjoy this: cold in Britain is a different experience compared with cold in Australia. Houses are heated much more effectively here, so it is easier to warm up if we do get really cold. And coats are serious, so wandering about outside is mostly not too bad.

But the colours mute and even seem to disappear into a dreary palate of brown, leafless trees against a grey, gloomy sky. And so Spring is something of a surprise. The colours come back. Spring soothes the greyness into the background with sudden pockets of pastels, while the green of summer gradually arrives. These little moments of colour startle the eye, so used to the grey brown of winter, and they give way to great splashes of colour, longer days, sunshine with warmth in it and leaves growing and unfurling in beautiful shades of green. Worthy of special mention are the daffodils. Vivids yellows dancing in the breeze are slightly breathtaking. They don't last very long, but they tease the mind with possibilities of summer.

One sunny day, Jonathan and I went for a walk intent on taking photos of Springtime. Here we ran into a slight problem. Jonathan's problem, of course, lay in my unwillingness to entrust him with the camera. It is an ongoing problem he has and one day will result in some kind of camera coup.

My problem, however, was slightly less complex. There were many photos I could have taken of everything from magnolias in full bloom to little bluebells (or whatever they are called), peeping up to the sun. But these pictures all involved a private residence of some kind. I don't know what the etiquette of this is and didn't want to find out. But churches, I decided, are fair game. After all, in this country the Church of England is still established and so church buildings are kind of public property. I, being the public, albeit the foreign public, thought it would be quite acceptable to take photos of churches for private use. I probably put a lot more thought into this than was strictly necessary. I was no doubt dazzled by so many gorgeous flowers and the sudden appearance of sunshine.

Here are my offerings. I hope you enjoy them, and although it ceased being Spring some time ago, it is never the wrong time of the year to see photos of a gentle English Spring. JMB