#370 - Coltsfoot flowerheads

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

from The Summer Day: Mary Oliver

#369 - Whitebeam leaf buds

I honestly thought for a second that someone had left some tasteful lights up in the tree near the play area in the park, because from a distance, I could see perfect globes strung up in the boughs, white with a barest hint of green. Lights, I thought, greened with algae, perhaps forgotten from Christmas or some other celebration. 

As I drew nearer I could see that the whole tree was covered, every twig tip, and it was just the sun shining on the buds that made them looks so bright and celebratory.

#368 - Honeysuckle leaves in the rain

We have just been up to the grey North for the weekend. It didn't rain but we drove through thick clouds of mist every morning. Last week, driving back up country from Somerset, I mourned the sea and the green hills as we entered the city, but this week, we drove down and the skies lightened the further south we got. We arrived home as the sun did that last flare it does, just before sinking. Everything lit up for a few minutes... it made me glad to be home. 

And Spring is truly here now. Even last week, while it was wet, it was clear that every tree was about to burst into green. Walking down a dull alley, under my umbrella, I spotted these flower-like leaf buds creeping over a garden wall. 

#367 - Monks hood lichen under water

I forgot how much I liked walking in the rain. How quiet it is, how the sound of the rain encloses you. Peaceful.

The brook was swollen in the park, and rivulets ran down the footpath. Water collected in every dip and hollow, so that everywhere was full of shifting, silvery streams. These lichen encrusted twigs lay half submerged, the palest green which almost shimmered in the pearly light.

I had decided to stop taking pictures, to stop being the women who crouches down over puddles in the rain; who puts her fingers into the mud to rearrange twigs just because they are looking strangely beautiful... but look how exquisite they are!

#366 - Wreath of beech leaf buds, ivy, lungwort and primrose

9th April, 2018

One day, I won't be thrilled by Spring. But not today.

#365 - Firethorn Circle on Snow

I thought it would be fitting to finish with a circle. I have photographed so many circles during  the course of this blog - flowers, leaves, berries - and it has been a record of the cycle of the seasons. Such a beautiful journey into mindfulness. I will never walk through the world as mindlessly as I did before I started to deliberately notice things, the way my children did when they saw 'twinkly weeds' and 'sparkly flowers'. Slowing down to notice has been a gift I gave to myself as I walked the city streets and parks, the ugly places and cramped corners of Birmingham which expanded and unfurled before my eyes, revealing mystery and beauty. 

I found these tiny Firethorn leaves in a hedge at the edge of the field where my children were sledging. The field only barely escapes being wasteland, a steep hill between two council estates that is usually bordered with wide swathes of bramble. With the thorns smothered under piles of snow, I could walk right to the edges where the gardens begin, and this Firethorn had spilled over into the wilderness, a small flare of colour I could see from far up on the hill. I walked down through the drifts and made a perfect circle of green and red on the snow, and in the distance I could hear my children laughing and shrieking as they slid down the hill over and over again. Our own little circle of perfection. The snow was crisp underfoot and the sun was streaming over the houses and tower-blocks behind us as I crouched over my little circlet of leaves, their colours so perfect and glowing between the snow and the sun... and I thought to myself... what a wonderful world!

#364 - Blackberry leaves on snow

The colours are subtle at this time of year and the snow is so bright everything looks somewhat blanched next to it's pristine glory. Blackberry leaves are a continual presence in the city and one of the few plants that still have new growth, even under the snow. I have photographed them in every stage: fresh, new green; robust summer verdure and the showy scarlets and wine-reds of autumn. In the snow they, like everything else, look bleached, but their undersides are all texture - lines and shadows of lines, with the bright pulse of spring hiding in pale veins, and tiny, crimson tipped thorns just showing on  their stems. 

I love the way the snow looks like clouds. The illusion of a juxtaposition of ethereal, airy space against the cruel sharpness of the leaves.

#363 - Sun Halo over snow

The days are so short at this time of year; the shadows move over the snow minute by minute. Light lies in hollows and catches the edge of crystals, throwing the dried grasses into stark silhouette.  

#362 Sunburst Lichen on Snow

I have been holding out for snow. I know the blog ended up lasting much longer than a year, but we haven't had enough snow to take a decent picture in, well, three, four years. It just didn't seem right to round up the 365 without some snow pictures. But finally, finally, it snowed in England - and we were all so excited that we rushed straight out with our sledges and I got involved in some intense igloo-building and then the snow had gone and I hadn't even taken any pictures. And then, Boxing day night, just as the children went up to bed, the cry went up from the landing, "It's snowing!" I can't hear those words without a small excited tingle - it takes me straight back to winters long ago with my brother practically willing the snow to fall. My dad would tease him that the snow wouldn't stay on the ground and he'd be quivering with delight and eagerness to get out for snowball fights. Happy memories. 

I made some more memories, with my own children, yesterday. The sun was piercing and the snow had frozen hard so that when I laid these beautiful twigs covered in Sunburst Lichen on to it, they appeared to float weightlessly.

#361 - Golden Beech Leaves in Mud

And so it begins... another autumn. I will miss the long evenings and bright days of summer but love this last flaming of nature before the weather really changes. My first perfect moment of the new season was seeing these leaves lying on the forest floor. As the song goes: "How can I keep from singing...?"

#360 - Opening leaves in May

I will need to go back to this tree later in the year, as I couldn't work out what it was; the leaves were opening in pairs, on the end of each twig, like hands opening to the sun. I love the newborn look of opening leaves, the crumpled look of potential.

#359 - Blackthorn blossom clusters

The blackthorns are full of spindly flowers, a frothy profusion along the sloe hedge. There is a path which leads between the hill and the hedgerow and this time of year I can't see it without thinking of Anne of Green Gables and her 'White Way of Delight'.

#358 - Alder catkins at sunset

Just as we left the park tonight, the sun was sinking behind the houses, and the sky was filled with rose and orange lights. The alder catkins, hanging dry and dead from last autumn, were silhouetted for a few moments against the sunset.

#357 - Ice laden leaves

 I took this photo in the corner of a field where the shadow of the houses had blocked the sun throughout the day. Most of the field was just wet and muddy but one corner was still magical and white, each blade of grass edged with silver, each leaf weighed down with ice crystals, bowed down with winter.

#356 - Frosted Oak Leaves

So far, in the Midlands, we've only had a sprinkling of snow which has quickly melted come the morning. I did manage to take an early walk yesterday and saw some crystal-rimmed leaves not yet caught by the Winter sun which was just appearing over the tops of the bare trees. A little bit of sparkle is what's needed in the bitter, January weather.

#355 - Blackberry heart on Maple

Took this photo a couple of weeks ago, walking the dog in the rain the morning we were meeting as a family to plant a tree on my father's grave. The day cleared up and was another beautiful golden one, like the day of his funeral. We prayed, one of the children read a poem and then we all sang in the November sunlight - "O Lord My God, When I in awesome wonder, consider all the works Thy hand has made..."

#354 - Rain on Leaves

The end of October and let the rainy walks begin. I was trying to take a different picture, blue sloes against a gold and russet beech tree, when I saw these rain-silvered, ghost leaves lying in the grass. The season changes and the world is unrecognisable, almost. Each year,  I re-remember.

#353 - Rosebay Willowherb tops

Strolling past the great bank of weeds that border one side of the stream, I noticed that the leaves at the very top of the Rosebay Willowherb plants were like fiery chrysanthemums.

#352 - Ragged leaves in the sun

Spotted these threadbare Maple leaves low down in the hedgerow and held them up to the afternoon sun. Made me think of these lines by Shakespeare: 

"Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my tattered loving..."
(Shakespeare, Sonnet 26)

I love the phrase, 'tattered loving' and these worn leaves reflect too, the wearing on of the year and how winter will soon be upon us.

#351 - Brown Mottlegill fungi

I think Autumn might be turning out to be one of my favourite seasons for taking pictures. Or perhaps it's the turn of a season I like, as all the plants change over there seems to be so much to see: new Autumn crocuses, a pool of lilac under the grey skies; the trees beginning to blaze on one side, as if we are waiting in that breathless moment after you place a match and wait to see if the fire will catch; the berries, red and purple... and green apples. And of course, mushrooms in the grass.