April 13th, 2007

April 18th, 2007

'Quite a difference', she said cheerfully. I have a decent stitch of two shots off the deck this time. Used the deck railing as a tripod. It isn't a perfect register, but it works, and the program melds the grass colour so that the shot gives a reasonable representation of what the back field actually looks like. What it does not show are the streams of water overflowing from the pools left by the late and unlamented foot of wet guck we got on Monday. Everywhere I walk, I squish. JG says it is a pity Little Stuff is not here today, as she loves to splash around in the puddles in her red ladybug boots. But I can almost see her stomping around out there, truly. It is that kind of day.

Andrea is longing for trout lilies. Although we call them 'dog toothed violets' around here, I know what she means and I intend to search the warm niches and crannies until I find the first ones to post for her. I am also looking forward to the hepatica, and the feral violets along the edges of the mowed part of the field. Next after them will come the trilliums (trillia?) and with them the blackflies, but I'll haul out my bug shirt and try not to scratch. Then lilac and apple blossom. Oh my! Every spring I tell myself not to anticipate and to enjoy each day for itself, and every June I blink and wonder how we got to summer so fast. This gets worse each year; I find that time is speeding up for me, and that the seasons tumble over themselves and the baby is ready for school before I am ready to let her go. If I could ask for one wish from the genie's lamp it would be for one of the endless summers I enjoyed as a child, I think. Summers that stretched on past the end of imagination, summers of sun and blue sky and crying gulls, wind and water, long timeless afternoons and walks on the beach in the dusk, running ahead of my parents, finding treasures on the sand.

There are four days of blue sky and sun forecast for here, with progressively warmer temperatures. Joy, bliss. Good-bye white winter skin and itchy wool socks. Tomorrow I will open the windows, hang the duvet over the deck railing to air, fill the clothes line with laundry and enjoy the trickle of spring puddles draining. Or I would, if I did not have to go to the Grand Opening of the CHC extension, and be polite to invitees from the Ministry who would not fund it. Well, even vegetable trays and too many speeches can be improved by an April day. And if things get too predictable, I can scoop up one of the groggy hornets just now staggering around after their winter of hibernation, and drop it down the chairman's neck. With apologies to Geoffrey,

Whanne that Aprille with his shoures sote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote...

Than longen folk to washe and to rede.