Down Memory Lane

The Thin Blue Line

The blue bell is the sweetest flower

That waves in summer air;

Its blossoms have the mightiest power

To soothe my spirit’s care.

Emily Brontë

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child....

1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 11

King James Version

And also when I was a child I rode my bike as a child, played in the woods as a child, climbed trees as a child, and loved the world around me as a child.....

And much of that time was spent in the Chilterns, roaming free in the countryside and the woods, watching the seasons roll around with flowers, leaves, trees, birds.....   Those were carefree days; little bothered me (as far as I can remember) but they were long ago.  Time has evaporated.....

And in the passing of time, so have family and friends passed away, and life has had its excitements and its depressions. So much has changed, so much has developed...... But, If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.....

We retrace my steps.  In the gardens of Ashridge House Queen Elizabeth I had walked as a child.  I was following a thin blue line back into the past, but I am reminded that life goes on, that flowers grow again and again, that trees stand their ground, that without the interference of despots and tyrants the world can be a beautiful place.....

So, If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing....  These words, in various forms, keep coming back to me, echoing over the decades (my brother Simon read them as we gathered at the end of one school year). 

Or as Deon Jackson so gently hinted in 1963:

Without love, flowers wouldn't grow in spring

And without spring, yeah, the birdies just couldn't sing

Yeah, everybody needs love

though some might add:

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz.

I wonder where the birdies is.

They say the bird is on the wing, but that’s absurd.

I always thought the wing was on the bird.

Hey....

Ho!

So, back in the Chilterns, in Ashridge, walking in Dockey Wood, the air fragrant with bluebell dust, the wind scintillating the fresh green beech leaves.... It is wonderful. I love it all.  And it is love that makes the world go round.....

The carpet so rich, so fine, so evanescent. A week or two and it will be gone, lost to the pollinators and the onlookers for another year, unless captured by an artist......

We move on. The next morning Tring Park is fresh and airy, the sap spiralling out into the new leaves as the temperature rises and the days lengthen:

Then we wind back to the Dunstable Downs and to the Whipsnade Tree Cathedral, created by Edmund Blyth to commemorate his friends who lost their lives in the First World War. This is an enchanted place, and we lie under the flowering cherries in the Easter Chapel, the sun scattering its rays through the petals:

I will not mention the unmentionable, and I am not one to quote biblical phrases lightly, but, given the unnecessary and unimaginable suffering unleashed by the ignorance and greed of certain men, the words of the damascene convert hover above me in the glorious light that (almost) blinds me:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres....

1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 4-7

New International Version

We walk around and over Ivinghoe Beacon, the start of the Ridgeway, and a splendid viewpoint over the Vale of Aylesbury, where cowslips gloriously flourish:

Then dive back into Ashridge Forest for a last wonder at the thin blue line:

And a surprise encounter with an earnest badger, doing the housework at the sett's back door, another reminder that the world is diverse and wonderful:  

I am told that Badgers eat hedgehogs, and that therefore they are not to be loved, but please read this piece from the website Hedgehog Street:

Hedgehogs and badgers share what’s known as an asymmetric intraguild predation relationship. Badgers can affect hedgehogs in one of three ways:

Competition; the two species compete for many of the same food sources. These include soil invertebrates such as earthworms and beetle larvae.

 

Predation; badgers can predate hedgehogs.

 

Avoidance; hedgehogs will avoid areas where badgers have been active. Where there are many badgers, hedgehogs are likely to be less common.

While badgers do prey on hedgehogs, this is natural predator-prey interaction. Although badger numbers have boomed in recent years, there is little evidence that suggests they are the main reason why hedgehogs are in trouble. Indeed, hedgehogs are struggling in rural places where we know few badgers live, like East Anglia. Where conditions are favourable and invertebrate food is readily available, the two species can co-exist.

The two species have co-existed for thousands of years, which suggests that recent human activity has been a more prominent factor in the decline of hedgehogs.

Or, as the British Hedgehog Preservation Society says:

Pointing the finger at a single cause, such as predation by badgers or road casualties, likely misses the bigger, more complex picture.

Before we leave we pay our respects to Bob's Oak, a four hundred year old tree that, despite the weariness of age, is still sprouting fresh foliage from the tips of its twigs. A youth in the reign of Charles I, this veteran reminds us that peace and love can transcend the foibles of the mad and the vicissitudes of wind and weather.

This spring, and especially these last few days, has/have been glorious. Yes, I have been wandering down memory lane, but nothing is as important as the infinitely expanding present. As Alan Watts (in Become What You Are) said: Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal. For the present moment is infinitely small: before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it persists forever....

There is a silent eloquence

In every wild bluebell

That fills my softened heart with bliss

That words could never tell.

Anne Brontë

*********

For CJ

If you walk, just walk. If you sit, just sit. But don’t wobble.

Yunmen Wenyan

*********

Flowers for my Queen

My Lady of the Camellias  

(or, rather, Azaleas)

It's a grey, damp morning as we enter the formal gardens at Sandringham, but then many of our days are grey and damp. I don't want to confuse Mental Health Awareness Week with Amanda's dementia, but who now knows how anxious she may feel?

So I have brought her, with her wheel chair, to see the gardens that the late Queen Elizabeth II loved. And my love may love.... In the cloudy light the colours are soft:

And the air is fragrant:

Ramsons vie with Hostas:

And the ground cover, like the light, is green and pleasant. It is, or it can be, a green and pleasant land.....

Amanda has a slight cold, but I have wrapped her up warmly, and she seems to appreciate the calm and the colour:

The flaming flowers (Azaleas, I believe, though I am not an expert - Rhododendrons, and not actually Camellias) being particularly attractive:

In  all their shades:

Though it is difficult to know what is going on in the remnants of her mind. Would she rather I didn't take her picture? Is she more interested in the passers by?

A great Horse Chestnut tree is alight with flowers:

And goslings, feeding on the luscious grass, demur to the house and lake:

I want to think that she appreciates these colours and the delicate scents around us. I want her to be happy in the closure of her mind. I don't want her to be anxious.... and, though I am not trying to diminish the significance of Mental Awareness Week, with its theme of Anxiety, I cannot entirely separate this need for awareness from the depth of Amanda's suffering. We are surrounded by beautiful flowers:

Wisteria is often associated with love and romance, due to its fragrant, showy flowers and lush green foliage. In Japanese culture, Wisteria is known as fuji, which means lady of the wind, so perhaps it is apt that I take these pictures with my FujiFilm camera. The association with grace and beauty has made Wisteria a popular symbol of love and affection.

 

And Camellia flowers symbolise love, affection, and admiration (you have to forgive me here; I wrote this thinking these flowers were Camellias, but have since been put straight - thank you Sarah!):

White Camellias (even if they are Azaleas....) symbolise adoration and are given to someone who is well-liked:

Pink Camellias (as above) symbolise a longing for someone and are given to someone who is missed:

Red Camellias (whatever!) symbolise love, passion, and deep desire:

These are flowers fit for a Queen.  They are fit for my Queen.

*     *     *     *     *

Dedicated to our dear friend Irene Boogerman, who passed away peacefully early this morning:

Amor è palpito dell´universo intero,

misterioso, altero,

croce e delizia al cor.

[Love is a heartbeat throughout the universe,

mysterious, altering,

the torment and delight of my heart.]

La Traviata

Giuseppe Verdi

Hertfordshire 1 - The Chiltern Hills

Spring Fever - When that Aprill with his shoures soote.....

Although there is an unusual tendency among certain human types to mutter and moan at every change of weather, there can be little argument that the gradual lengthening of days and warming of the soil in March and April brings relief and joy to the northern world....

Among the first signs of life renewal, which may be in January or February (they are traditionally linked with Candlemas), are snowdrops.....

But these icy little flowers are soon followed by sunny primroses, (from prima rosa - first flower) emerging on banks and in ancient graveyards (Primrose Day is April 19th, when primroses are laid on Disraeli's monument at Westminster Abbey).....

And in the meantime the male catkins of goat willow (pussy willow) turn bright yellow to brighten hedges and scrublands....

Around the same time daffodils come into bloom.  Wild daffodils are also known as Lenten lilies, and Easter lilies, and they used to be among the commonest of our wild flowers.  I remember the fields near my grandparents' home in Sussex being completely filled with them when I was young....  The two bright yellows of these flowers gladden hearts as they shine like the sun, and it is not surprising that Wordsworth's poem is one of the nation's favourites.....

Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

But perhaps the best of spring comes with the emergence of shining lakes of perfumed bluebells?  I suppose it marks that point of no return for Spring, when the earth is full of growth, the air is full of scents and songs, and the fires of love warm life anew.  We may suffer inclement showers and stormy winds, but the prevalence is for light, and the snows and frosts of winter are now, we hope, fading memories.....

O I admire and sorrow! The heart's eye grieves
Discovering you, dark tramplers, tyrant years.
A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves,
And beauty's dearest veriest vein is tears.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, On the Portrait of Two Beautiful Young People

Near where I live are the splendid beech woods of Ashridge, but all around me are pockets of ancient woodland with well-established colonies of native bluebells.  From a distance sometimes they shimmer like water, as Housman suggests, waves of them lapping at the boles of trees....

And like a skylit water stood
The bluebells in the azured wood.

A E Housman

A walk in the bluebells has long been an annual necessity in our family, and, though the real thing is never as good in two dimensions, there has often been an attempt to capture the moment....

My mother took this snap of dad in the last year of his life....

With the sun a little higher in the sky, and the unfurling of fresh young leaves and fronds, the woods at this time of year continue to surprise with their variety. Later in the year, when the trees are in full leaf, less light penetrates to the floor, so the sparkle is gone.....

At this time, the stems themselves can seem like trees....

And their own haze makes the perfect background for their individual bells....

Sometimes they are whipped by hurried breezes, 

Sometimes you find a solitary plant standing quietly in a clearing.....

Although they are found all over the British Isles, and don't only clothe the floors of beech woods, in the Chilterns they mostly live under the canopy and do their best to flower and set seed before the darkening leaves close over them and they die back.....

A bluebell's eye view....

The rich weave of colour that we see when the bluebells are at their best distracts us from everything else, and it comes as a surprise to find that among them, as if by stealth, other bright gems are set....

Greater stitchwort with its fragile stems needs the cover and support of other plants to raise its delicate flowers to the sun, and then lower in the undergrowth, Germander speedwell makes its appearance....

And peeking from the foliage, another little blue flower appears....

That sweet and bright-eyed flowerlet of the brook
Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not!


Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Keepsake

Ground ivy joins the blues, 

White dead-nettles attract the bees..... 

Jack-by-the-hedge appears in flower.  This is also known as Garlic mustard, and it has long been used for flavouring and for salads.....

Though if you would like a slightly stronger taste, then the leaves of Wild garlic, or Ramsons, can be gathered and eaten in salads or wilted like spinach.....

And, as the bluebells begin to fade, Yellow archangels take their place in the parcels of ancient woodland in Heartwood Forest.....

So......

Whan Zephyrus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,

And smale foweles maken melodie.....

[Geoffrey Chaucer, 

The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales]

Then I love going on rambles in the countryside.....  It's such a positive time of year!

Spring Fever is generally a good and lively thing, and the rising sap stirs us from our invernal lassitude. But every silver lining has a cloud, as they say, and Spring Fever can also be the opposite, known as Frühjahrsmüdigkeit, an unexpected tiredness or loss of energy.....

This may account for the lack of engagement noted in this quotation from P G Wodehouse's novel, Spring Fever:

Breakfast had been prepared by the kitchen maid, an indifferent performer who had used the scorched earth policy on the bacon again..... 

Or it may in part be responsible for the appalling laziness that led to this example of Spring Cleaning:

There's always someone around to spoil things.

Fly tipping not far from Heartwood Forest.

* * * * * * *

This one's for my mum.....