In Bloom

It would be easy to imagine that when you spend the whole of your waking life outdoors on the same patch of land that things would get to be a little, well, routine. Thankfully I've found this not to be the case. Unlike in, say, an office where the surroundings rarely change except perhaps some lame bunting at Christmas, here there is always something new to observe. This is especially so in spring of course.

This dandelion flower only lasted one day

Right now the crab apple tree is in full white blossom. Bluebells stand in clumps in the long grass looking splendid. The elder tree by the entrance is on the verge of producing its clusters of tiny white flowers in upended-umbrella formation. Next to it the hawthorn is also about to flower, each one still a tightly-fastened ball on short stalks reaching for the sky.

Elderflowers about to go for it

Hawthorn about to bloom

Even more exciting are the four blueberry plants that I planted two years ago. For the first time ever they have flowers on them, beautiful delicate pale-pink cups, that can mean only one thing - delicious purple globes of goodness! That's if the birds don't get to them first.

Then there are the out-of-the-ordinary events that happen from time to time as I toil amongst the cabbages. An owl hooting in the late afternoon. Aren't they supposed to wait till night-time? Must be an early riser. A mousetrap vanishing - it wasn't there in the morning. Something must have been caught but not killed, and ran off with it. The sound of a chainsaw nearby. I went to investigate, climbed up the bank towards the road, in time to see a large tree being felled on the other side. The smell of smoke but no sign of any. I ran to check my caravan wasn't on fire. I found out later it was my neighbour, a good 200m away, burning some hay that had unfortunately got wet and rotten.

Crab apple blossom

Fighter jets roaring past are an almost every day occurrence here as the pilots skim over the tops of the mountains and down low through valleys. Are they equipped with missiles? If not they certainly will be when sent to other more unfortunate parts of this world, and the same pilots no doubt will fire them. Here they are content with attempting to burst our eardrums but at least they only do so during the daytime, Monday to Friday. Which is why I was a bit shocked when one thundered overhead in the deep twilight after 9pm, its lights blinking, leaving me waving my fist pathetically after it shouting “What about the little asleep children?” Yes, that should give the MoD something to think about.

A baby lettuce with some of its friends