BEAUTIFUL SEASONS

I don’t particularly want to keep going on about isolation and the virus all the time. All of us who are living through this now, know all of it too well. It affects every aspect of all of our lives, and while each day morphs into the next, we muddle through at home where there’s not a great deal to write about.

I could talk about multiple remote databases in a high availability cluster! No? What about word-wrapping rules at the end of a line of justified text?

Nope. I see.

It had better be bluebells then.

Yesterday, I went for a sunlit walk through the woods. There in the green afternoon sun, bursting through the tall trees, was a carpet of bluebells. They’re so delicious there in the shade, with bees and butterflies circling, and the gentle hum of Spring in the air.

There was something in the light too that made them look very photogenic, although my Dad was fond of telling us that they come out purple in photos - and although he wasn’t there in the woods obviously, his voice was yet in my head. I expect I’ll be an old man one Spring in the future, and my Dad’s voice will still be telling me it’s ‘illegal to pick them, impossible to photograph them, and ill-advised to eat them.’

Anyway, there they were - free to admire nonetheless, arching from the grass with their long stems and fairy hoods. There was nobody around in the woods; I felt very special.

It was a beautiful afternoon, actually. When the trees are so vivid and green, and so full of life, the contrast with the bright blue sky is spectacular!

It wasn’t roasting hot, just warm enough for shirt sleeves, but absolutely not sweaty - cool, pleasant, warm, fresh. This time of year rivals September for me in the quest for 'best season' - though of course we’re a little limited as to how much we can enjoy it. I wandered poetically through the wood, which felt like exactly the thing to be doing on such an afternoon.

There’s more than one kind of bluebell. Apparently there’s a Spanish type that bees prefer, so wherever it grows it pollenates a little better - leaving the bluer, native, English Bluebell to dwindle. I couldn’t really tell the difference; I just think they look so majestic and lovely. Though of course I think it’s a bit rich the Spanish bluebells “coming over here, taking our shade and our bumblebees.” 

There were butterflies too - or flutterbys as I sometimes call them, circling in pairs in what Morgan Freeman or David Attenborough would call ‘a dance as old as time’. I do love life in all its forms. I smiled as I walked and remembered.

It’s incredible how a thing that’s too small to even see has brought the planet to its knees. And yet, somehow here, it feels like it’s also brought back a whole lot of forgotten things that we never used to seem to have had time to do. A walk in the woods, a show of the finest carpet of bluebells, and the dancers taking to the stage with their soft wings between the trees, and their delicate flutter of Spring.

Sometimes it takes the toughest times to realise the most beautiful seasons.