Innocent Pleasures ...

Dear Mr Postman .. it's at this time of year that we seem particularly to appreciate small pleasures .. spring has sprung and all tiny things appear wonderful .. we are grateful to see you on this wonderful sunny day ..

Going back to yesterday's letter and the news of burgeoning spring .. when I went to the hospital I realised I'd missed so many other wonderful new beginnings .. the berberis hedges with their amazing orange clusters, turning to dark purple berries later on - which the birds luxuriate on, - another Darwin find during his Beagle voyage down South America. We had these hedges in our garden .. great prickly lines with these fantastic orange blooms ..

I love the dark streaks of branches, stems, twigs .. that suddenly show life .. and give a promise of spring and new growth .. another plant we had at home and is coming into flower now is the flowering quince (Japonica or Chaenomeles) .. I just love the colour - described as bright orange scarlet .. to me it's got some pink in it .. just beautiful.

The tulips, grape hyancinths, late daffodils, narcissi, pansies, irises, narcissi, wall flowers - this huge array of carpets of blooms .. the verges in the country are full of primroses, primulas, violets - backed by the sprouting white flowered blackthorn or sloe (used to infuse gin .. my mother remembers making some in the days when she drank gin!) - all promising of other pleasures to come.

The common blackbird, recorded by Linnaeus as far back as 1758, with its yellow eye-ring and bright orange beak is darting around bobbing up and down as it prepares to nest in gardens, hedges, thickets ... the male starts singing in late March - a wonderful musical warble followed by a high pitch finish, then starts again .. the song is magical and has been sacred to folklore.

The Skylark is another bird immortalised in our culture - this year 2009 we seem to be lucky: spring is taking its normal course, we've had a typical winter/spring build up with slowly increasing temperatures allowing our vegetation to take its natural course.

When we're out in the country on warm days we can take in the innocent pleasures of spring without a second thought and watch the skylark as it rises straight up to hover at distant heights singing its lofty song before it plunges down .. my mother and I were talking and laughing about the memories of our walks in the country listening and watching the distant specks high in the blue skies of spring.

Are you experiencing the innocent pleasures of our northern hemisphere spring?

You are enjoying your post rounds now? - that's good news to hear .. it is wonderful being out and having some of that warming sun on our backs .. thank you so much bringing us this positive letter ..

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters