Saturday 26th January - Spring; a Full Circle

I had always thought of the winter landscape as being rather colourless. I was sceptical of the wildly technicolour ipad paintings of David Hockney in the Royal Academy exhibition this time last year (I didn't go, but there was a lot of television coverage).

Then I looked closer, and spotted the acid greens and neon yellows were actually there, for real. The new spring growth in the fields truly is a lurid paint-box green.

I have been driving some of the route around the countryside for three or four years now, and look out for the various seasonal markers. Monday's road, outward bound, takes me past a place where a tree fires up with a magnesium-flare of white blossom against the rest of the woods, and, homeward, a churchyard becomes a carpet of pink, white and purple crocuses.

Tuesday is along the same roads, but not so far. I might miss the glorious flowers, but I still get to watch out for the sudden eruption of green leaves on the willows beside the hump-back bridge over the river.

Wednesdays, ah, Wednesdays! If I am able to take the back road, through narrow, twisty, hilly lanes that really belong in Cornwall, I will find the first daffodils (almost in flower last week - truly - in January!) and the first primroses on a sudden, south-facing bank, again, only seen when homeward bound, as from the other direction I am too busy watching the potholes and on-coming traffic to look out for them. Until next Wednesday, then.