#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.