Springtime

I drive to work every day. The journey is about 15 miles, and takes about 40 minutes, most days. I rather enjoy it, as I drive cross-country through some beautiful scenery.

This morning, it was cold and misty when I left the house, so the first part of the trip was shrouded in dim, grey vapour, with nothing to see bar the lights of approacing cars. However, as I left the town, and started to climb out of the valley, I burst into sunshine, into a wonderful clear, clean day, under a robins-egg blue sk, agaisnt which two hot air balloons hung, silently, as if painted on the sky.

There are signs everywhere that Spring is well and truly sprung. The hedges, now, are a patchwork of brown and grey and green and white - some parts still nothing but bare branches, interspersed with the white of May, and the vivid green of the new beech-leaves, and the grey of the pussy-willow's catkins.

In the fields, the Chestnut trees, too are covered with new leaves, the grass is bright, not yet dried or bleached by the sun. The hedgrows are full of the sunbursts of dandelions and the paler ivory and cream primroses.

This morning, the mist had left dewdrops sparkling everywhere, and coming up over the hills I could look down and see the valleys still filled with mist, the top of the mist lapping against the hills like a great grey lake.

Mornings like this remind me. This is my land. And it is beautiful.