Rain at last. Sitting on the sofa as I write, I gaze out of the cabin windows as Milo draws the scene below for an art project. Spring is in overdrive, 4 weeks of beautiful weather has warmed the soil up, the daffodils have made way for the celandines who in turn have made way for the rose campions. The wild garlic is in profusion down by the river, a thick fug of perfume rises up as you run along the road as we did as a family yesterday. The cow parsley growing by day, lolling in the wind on the verges. Down in the woods, the purple haze of bluebells is high above the rustling floor of leaves from another time. There is a wondrous irony that the moment we went into lockdown, the sun came out, and stayed, shinning above us, a beacon of light and hope against dark times. Perhaps Nature is making its point.
Down by the farm, carrots seeds long thought as dead to the world are saying hello to the world, bristling and jostling for attention beside spring onions, bent and confused. The tomatoes and peppers are now transplanted into their final resting places, burgeoning and ready to put in a shift in. Orchids grow in the woods, now vacated by our piggy wigs. Alas gone to feed the nation.
The cows have fled the sheds, now ensconced up on the hills above the Taw. Wrapping the grass round their tongues and tearing it in to their mouths with aplomb. The 20 odd lambs are growing up, tails gone with strong hind quarters, less needy on their exhausted mothers, the focus, gone from jumping and frivolity to the hard graft of eating the spring flush grass. Even Parsnip the pet lamb has joined the crew, uncertain at first but now growing in confidence with big burly boys and girls he looks up to.
Spring has everything, it’s a chance to make amends and new beginnings. But to me it’s also about colour, that green of a fresh leaf is intoxicating. It represents hope. And yet, if you took that colour, presented it against a Pantone chart and then asked for that colour for wall paint, it would look disgusting. I just can’t work that out. How is that possible? Or is colour, not just about urr, gradations of light and dark, but also about context, where you see that colour? I guess it’s a similar relationship to the type of glass you use when drinking a fine IPA or a deep Spanish red. Hmm, nice.