Easter, Eggs and New Beginnings

The ice and snow are slowly, slowly melting from the garden and the ice sheet is receding on my little pond.
Through this particularly grey winter it hasn't just been the meteorological climate that has been bitingly harsh; the winter chill seems to have pervaded the general mood as well.

But under the worst of conditions, life and hope emerges (as sure as eggs is eggs) and sure enough this weekend, from under the snowy duvet on the pond appeared the first batch of frog spawn.
If the frogs have confidence that conditions will improve, then I want to share their optimism.

Here's to new beginnings!
                                                     

Pippa's Song  by Robert Browning

 

The year's at the spring,

The day's at the dawn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew pearl'd;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in his heaven-

All's right with the world!

 

 

Capturing Snowdrops

Snowdrops are just too white.

They look charming as they daintily nod and tease the photographer from their dappled woodland setting and like sirens of the forest they lure droves of happy snappers to an afternoon of pain and frustration.

Memory cards fill up, batteries go flat, knees give out, and backs lock up in the efforts to capture that magic drift of fairy tale white amongst mossy tree stumps and dried oak leaves.

An afternoon spent chasing that elusive snowdrop picture resulted in nothing. A sea of white flowers became a sea of white …nothing-muchness and one lone snowdrop looked like a study for a gardening catalogue.

The play of bright sunshine through deep shade looks delightful to the eye, but is far out of my league when it comes to controlling the light for the image.  Still, if I hadn’t been trying to photograph them I wouldn’t have got down on my knees in the mud to have a close look, or been aware of their sweet perfume.

I feel I know snowdrops a bit better now, and because they play so hard to get, maybe I appreciate them more.

                                               Captured Snowdrops

Down in the Tulgey Wood

Winter draws on, and they certainly are; big thick wooly ones!

Over the last few weeks, we’ve had thick fogs, flooded roads, ice and now heavy snow, so Dog and I have been exploring some different places that we’d otherwise have missed by simply heading off in the car to the usual romps.

Deep in a dense old forest, and surrounded by deep welly-sucking bogs we came across a stand of once magnificent beech trees. Many were dead, some dying, others had fallen in a tangled, struggling mass. It was an eerie place; as though the whole forest was drowning.

The trees still living were turning green from the roots up. Moss and lichen, with their different shades of brilliant green gave a surprisingly cheerful atmosphere to the otherwise gloomy surroundings.

It was too dark to get a decent hand held photo of the mossy bark, so I knelt on Dog’s lead, while he went in search of the Jabberwock, and I rested the camera on a mossy stone. The forest floor had an odd mixture of sour mud smell and that pleasant leaf mouldy-mushroomy aroma.

Having snapped the picture, I was glad there was no-one, not even the Jabberwock, to see me slide backwards into a green pool while holding my camera like Excalibur above my head.

Here's the picture, now....where's Dog?

JABBBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gire and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought-

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood a while in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast though slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.