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Staying at Home:  April 6th, 2020

6/4/2020

2 Comments

 
PicturePussy Willow for Palm Sunday
There's a haze of green as leaf buds unfurl. On the evening of Palm Sunday Her Majesty The Queen addresses the nation at a time of crisis.  She reminds us of who we are, who we aspire to be.
Next morning, the songsters of the dawn chorus sing joyfully.  On 6thr April  the dawn chorus coincides with The Shipping Forecast and I'm spoilt for choice.  The blackbird suddenly morphs into Arctic Tern and Tweet of the Day. 
Drink in small joys around you, says Katya Adler, the BBC Europe editor.

She tells us that she came across Brian Patten's poem,  The Stolen Orange,  at a time of personal grief when her father died.  She reads the poem with her daughter Sophia and that uniting of three generations made it particularly moving. 
Last night, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital- having Covid and the symptoms persist.  On the Today Programme Tony Blair wished him a speedy recovery,,  understanding as few of us could the enormity of the challenge the Government  faces at this time.
Then radio 4 introduces  The Passion for Plants-  linking Easter Week and botany.. A programme I much enjoyed and plan to return to.  I began to regret the impossibility of being in the countryside and seeing willow full of catkins.  Then remembered a willow in the garden on this bright and sunny morning.
Looking about the garden I come upon cherished gifts from friends.  Primroses galore, from a single root given by a  friend who died a few years ago.  A sole cowslip.   And a mystery object.  An erratic,  a boulder which has wandered into the garden and sits amongst the primroses.  A smooth and patterned boulder, a coral fossil. It's had a spring clean.  I scraped off moss and took water and a scrubbing brush to show it at its loveliest.
As I work in the garden I hear a high piping amongst the shrubs and hope birds are nesting.   And a child's voice, light and merry.  His father attending to the garden. The erratic looks out of place, and it is.  As if a child had kicked a football into our garden.  Kick at that and you'd break your foot. 
On such a day there are joys to Staying at Home..    
2 Comments
an orienteer
7/4/2020 06:55:23 am

Pleasures can indeed be derived from the natural world in these troubled times. and from the serendipity of discovering anew what can be found in the garden if one is fortunate enough to have one. Appears this erratic is a sea rounded limestone boulder full of crinoid fossils. It is a rare find indeed!

Reply
John Pettegree
7/4/2020 09:09:54 pm

The fine weather teases, my willow gives the small birds a huge playground and the poem was lovely

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    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books)

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