Pretty Primulas

Not having television at the click of a switch (excepting excellent I-player, of course) fosters the habit of reading.  So at the close of Christmas Day I took out The Oxford Book of Sixteenth Century Verse and fled to a pastoral scene of nymphs and shepherds; Chloris and Doris, Colin and Cynthia.

The shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night (concerning whom I have heard at least two sermons this month) are recorded in Scripture, but alas, Chloris, Doris and their crew live where no topographer can trace them, in Arcadia.

I left Spenser and Sidney to their courtly devices and chose to spend some time with the poems of John Skelton (c.1460-1529).  And if you can find it, read his address To Mistress Margery Wentworth.

Here is the second stanza:

 Plainly, I cannot glose

Ye be, as I divine,

The pretty primerose,

The goodly columbine.

Off to the allotment the following morning and there were my pretty primulas, under the big apple tree, full of promising buds, yellow petals beginning to open out.   And there was the robin, not as familiar as Skelton's Philip Sparrow but equally adept at seeking small worms, eyeing me from the low branches.

 

 

 

 
 

Screen Saving

I left the machine unattended for a few minutes and had a pleasant surprise.  The computer's 'innards' prompt it on these occasions to bring up the photos we have stored.

There were the wigwams of runner beans, the dessert grapes photographed in close up by my husband on an antique glass dish against the backdrop of our net curtains (the picture is better than this rudimentary description), the sweetcorn from 2011, the laden damson branches from the same year, the apple trees covered with snow, and then with fruit.

Happy memories in a season when it is too wet to do anything other than gather leeks and spinach and dig a few artichoke tubers.

How our thoughts will loop round when left to idle.  I hope that your recollections this Christmas season are happy ones.  May you set your mind on those that bring joy.

Essex Egret

We have always loved those solitary fishers, herons.  When we lived in West Didsbury we would encounter them at intervals along the banks of the Mersey - thin ones and healthy ones, accomplished spearers of coarse fish and those whose ineptitude made us fear for their survival.  Here on our allotment, they like to visit the pond, to the discomfort of B.  He has placed a large, very life-like plastic imitation heron on one bank to discourage them.  The goldfish are still there, circling hopefully just under the surface whenever they perceive a human silhouette.

But the only time we had previously seen the heron's smaller relative, the egret, was on the marshes at Tollesbury, a fitting place in its wildness with the oystercatchers calling over the mudflats. 

On Friday I saw an egret in Writtle, three miles from Chelmsford, fishing in the overflowing stream that runs by the willows along the side of the college.  It was there lifting up its feet in its delicate whiteness as I drove past and there on the way back. 

Little visitor, if only you could come and establish yourself by our pond.  Meanwhile, good fishing.

A string of thoughts

The frost has thickened on the spider webs along the avenue and they droop from shrubs, for all the world as if a child has been festooning the bushes with silly string.

Monday was cold, but we strimmed and aerated a small lawn and a resident robin came down for the pickings. 

Holly from the hedge brings its bright berries to our Christmas wreath.

Jerusalem artichokes in soup seasoned with garam masala - comfort food for cold days.

Saturday's job awaits - finishing a clearance; cutting privet.
 
Our leeks thicken slowly in the frost ready for Christmas Day.