A long-awaited funeral

It's my Mother's funeral tomorrow. 

I stepped out of a delightful school trip with my Latin pupils and into the car to travel down with Nigel and Pascoe. The twins will join us there.

For administrative reasons, there's been a long interval between Mum's death and her funeral. 'That must be difficult,' people say. 

 But now as we drive down, the sun is lighting up the white blackthorn blossom all the way along the hedges. Primroses and celandines glimmer on the verge.

The delay has allowed new growth to take place. In our pond appear newts and frogspawn, in our hedge, the birds are in full chorus. 

And in our memories, superceding her last period in hospital and the sadness of Alzheimers and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, the Mum of old has had time to return, lively, humorous and full of creative ideas.

A Good Time For Covid?

Nigel and I have been laid low by Covid, presumably the Omicron variant.

Since I have been working in secondary schools and he has attended the odd meeting in central London, this highly contagious variant did seem unavoidable.

Long country walks are something we consider essential to happiness, but at the moment we are confined indoors.

So I have been consoling myself that if there was one good time of year to be trapped at home, then this is it – ten dry, cold, overcast January days, with daylight fleeting early.

The very countryside has appeared dormant.

Yet as I have begun to feel better, I can see how wrong I have been.

Whenever the sun shows its face, I hear birdsong, led by our robins, but including a swelling number of other species.  Blue tits are showing a great deal of interest in our nest boxes.

Our doves have begun to vie for the best nest sites in our dove cote.

Each night, foxes rend the air with their barks.

Even the hedgehog which we have been fostering this winter seems to have no interest in hibernating.

So when I finally get the all-clear to leave the house, the first intimations of spring will be awaiting me with open arms.

Video of Nigel feeding robin by Carenza

Blue tit photo by david Griffiths on Unsplash

How will the countryside manage without us?

The spring weather has been so heart-meltingly beautiful lately.

Our reward for grounding the polluting aeroplanes has been cobalt skies and tiny twists of white cloud.  Just like the clear weather when the planes stopped because a volcano erupted in Iceland a few years back.

And combined with that, there has been the time to enjoy the sights of spring.

Over the last week I have stood with Nigel and Pascoe and watched:

 a coot diving to the bottom of a moat, then rising swiftly upwards as if in an elevator,

male moorhens battling over territory like an aquatic display of cock fighting,

a little grebe hunting for food by zipping along underwater.

“What is this world if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?”

In the warm weather this week, I’ve had my first sightings of the fabulously colourful brimstone, peacock and tortoiseshell butterflies.

Not to mention the naughty bee fly with its intriguing life cycle.

Violets and wood anemones are blossoming and bluebell leaves are pushing through, readying themselves to blossom in a month’s time.

So it’s going to be tough if we stop being allowed out to exercise.

But just like with the planes stopping, there’s always an upside: perhaps the wildlife will be glad to have a break from us disruptive humans!

God doesn’t have Good Taste

One of the best things about God is that he doesn’t have good taste.

We just visited Copenhagen with shops famous for Danish design.  All that pared-down, smooth-edged beige and grey!  Step outside however, and the contrast actually made me laugh.

What was on offer was ridiculous abundance – armfuls of white and pink cherry blossom, the million tassels of lime-green willow catkins, hosts of bulbs pushing up flowers of scarlet, yellow and purple.  

The first bees humming purposefully and brimstone butterflies flittering through.

Why are there so many yellow flowers at this time of year?  Is it in case we didn’t get the point?  The sun is back!

And the birds burbling incessantly like the cascade of a snow-melt river.

It is going to be the promise that is implied by this encompassing beauty which gets us through the dark moments of Good Friday as we remember Christ’s crucifixion. 

But it’s going to be Easter Sunday when we truly receive the message of the Resurrection – Christ rises up after death.  And all around us, the trees that have looked grey and dead through the winter, and the lifeless stretches of beige earth are suddenly dazzling and brilliant and overwhelmed with colour.