In my forthcoming debut novel and in effulgent terms, I describe May in south west Scotland, where I live. May can be the finest month in the Nithsdale year. Through the woods, bluebells nod in drifts. Along the loanings, cow parsley froths and swaggers. The lovely campion and cuckoo flowers are everywhere in the grassland.Continue reading “May be or May be not”
Tag Archives: spring
April come she will
April can seem full of deception. Promising much, then failing to deliver. Eulogized by the poets for its splendour, but also exposed by them as painful and cruel. The gateway to Spring, it still has frost on its back. Not for the first time in my life, I associate it this year with death andContinue reading “April come she will”
An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Early arrivals
Once things begin to move in the early season garden, every day can bring the pleasure of a new arrival. After a chilly spell, or perhaps at the end of days of false hopes, suddenly something is poking up through the leaf mould in the borders, with a clear message: Spring is round the corner.Continue reading “An A-Z of 2024 in the garden: Early arrivals”
Catkins at New Year
Towards the end of last winter, this hazel bush was pruned hard and the older stems carefully removed. The treatment appears to have been beneficial, and the show of catkins now is like none it has produced before. The benefits of the right intervention at the right time! On the afternoon of Hogmanay, the sun appearedContinue reading “Catkins at New Year”
Quotidian 