Choosing one precious moment to hold the day — the first wood anemone I’ve seen this year, curtsying on the wayside as I passed.
I curtsied back, of course, and took a photograph.
Windflowers indeed — March winds frisking through my walking togs.
#NoticingNature #BritishWildflowers #Spring
A gentle full stop to the day.
Weary on the meadow path, surrendering the day’s unmet expectations, a ladybird stopped me in my tracks.
Ladybirds are made to hold the light — their tiny shields catching sun and reflecting it back.
As though the whole day were gathered there.
Enough. Full stop.
Fairy fabric.
Feeling weary I pulled on my yellow wellies and wandered to the bottom of the garden.
An ephemeral pond lay lined with luminous green fabric.
Blanket weed, no doubt.
But perhaps the fairy queen has commissioned a gown for the spring court - or parchment for spring ball invitations.
A butterfly blessing. On a grey, drizzly day I find myself reflecting on a brimstone sunbathing on the wall yesterday. Said to have given all butterflies their name — from Anglo-Saxon buttor-fleoge, “butter-fly.” Folklore claimed they slipped into dairies to steal cream — fairies, perhaps.
Yes — and sometimes we get to hold that in our hands.
They certainly know how to arrive — helicoptering in! 🌱💚🌱
Thank you — much to ponder there.
Thank you for the recommendations — much appreciated.
Thank you — that quiet pre-dawn light can be extraordinary… otherworldly.
Sleeping Beauty
Clearing last year’s stems in Threshold Meadow, I discovered the first pink campion lifting through the tangle. Red campion bears male and female flowers. Today — just two: prince and princess, perhaps. But soon the banks will be alive with them, as though the spell has truly lifted.
A forest in the palm of my hand.
Neil’s car has been parked beneath the trees long enough for sycamore seeds to settle in every seam. Taproots spiralling, searching for soil that wasn’t there.
Some still wear their lacy wings.
I gathered them to replant in the hedge — holding a world in my hand.
Spring’s first blush —
the first true colour of the season.
Dawn and dusk,
through the same window — held in the same frame.
After yesterday’s rain.
#SpringsFirstBlush
#DawnToDusk
#SeasonTurning
#SolaceInNature
#BritishLandscape
And yet it rests there — lightly, on a leaf. That’s what moves me most.
Truly — thank you Carole. 🦔
Thank you - Neil built the little shelter, and I fussed over the details. She seems content with the arrangement. 🦔💚
Thank you, Diana.
How lovely that it carries you back. I hope these small glimpses keep that thread unbroken. And yes — tending what remains feels more important than ever.
I love knowing their names — it feels like being properly introduced. But you’re right: sometimes simply standing before them is enough. Yellow needs no surname to shine.
For Wildflower Hour —
Stepping into Spring —
a slow procession of early wildflowers,
each one answering the light.
Soundtrack: spring’s first dawn chorus.
#WildflowerHour
#SolacelnNature
#EarlySpring
#BritishWildflowers
#DawnChorus
Celandine sunshine.
Meteorological spring begins tomorrow. Lesser celandines along the hedge banks.
Mirror-like petals reflect sunlight, drawing in pollinators. They close as light fades, keeping the sun folded inside.
Loved by Wordsworth — and me!Small heralds.
The hedge banks answer the light.
A slow day. No galloping about.
A mare’s tail prancing through primroses.
Wild daffodils in rain bonnets — sunshine yellow against my soggy cap.
Pussy willow, soft and new.
Bracket fungi.
Blue sky as the rain relented.
Nothing hurried. Nothing missing.
#NoticingNature #EarlySpring #DawnChorus
Mrs Teasel has returned.
Kitten biscuits placed in her pop-up restaurant, lovingly built by Neil.
Not new — the menu merely paused during hibernation.
Mrs Teasel dined in, accompanied by the mysterious chorus of toads.
Hospitality, as ever, requires boundaries. Cats and kittens not invited.
Such joyful news, Brigit.
After this sodden winter, hedgehogs waking up and visiting once again feels like pure encouragement. Mrs Teasel’s pop-up diner has now been quietly reprovisioned in hopeful anticipation. 🦔 xx
The first butterfly is never just a sighting.
It is the season shifting, almost imperceptibly.
A small, winged assurance that the year is turning.
Today, a red admiral — one held by sunlight, one held by stitch.
#RedAdmiral
#Butterfly
#Phenology
#NatureAndArt
#TurningSeasons
A hollow that remembers rain.
Held in the tree’s crook, a dendrotelm — a temporary sky resting within wood. Bare branches repeated in still water, the lucid blue of a reflected sky briefly detained.
Not emptiness, but quiet habitation.
Stillness, alive with process.
#HiddenNature #Dendrotelm
Entirely plausible, if you ask me — crows seem exactly the sort to cultivate mystery and meaning. 😊
A country mile from home.
Marshy grassland lifting and folding in long, roly-poly undulations, the path seeming provisional — less imposed than quietly agreed upon.
And there, wild daffodils — gathered, golden, assured.
I curtsied without thinking. To beauty.
Spring approaching.
#NoticingNature
What a beautiful lore to wander into — I’ve wandered there myself. I love how many cultures find meaning in such small, fleeting things ✨
For Wildflower Hour.
Petals before proclamations.
Colour before certainty.
Gathered in the rain —
raindrops lending everything a quiet radiance.
Above it all, the song thrush rehearsing the season.
Spring — not declared, but approaching.
#WildflowerHour #NoticingNature #BritishWildflowers
A postcard from Nature.
No stamp required, no fixed address.
Nothing written, yet everything said.
A leaf inscribed — hunger translated into a rose.
Burnished leaves, fragmented shell, a mushroom rising.
Ivy, thorns, soft seed heads.
Above it all, song thrush phrases rising.
Spring — approaching
