Jottings from a country churchyard

I AM SITTING OUTSIDE in the shade (too hot in the April sun!) writing this on what promises to be the last day of the wonderful spell of sunny, “proper” spring weather. The sun has produced an explosion of blossom – bulbs, shrubs, wall climbers everywhere splashes of colour. Some of it, enticed by the warm sun, is well ahead of its usual time. Even my wisteria is showing flashes of purple. The prevailing scent at the moment for me is from my balsam poplar. As the first sticky leaves unfurl in April their sweet spicy tang overlays everything else. The whole house is filled with it for a few days until the leaves are fully opened and hardened, and the memory lingers with a longing for next year’s repeat. I “stole” this tree from Rode Bird Gardens where I worked for 27 years until it closed in 2000. Whenever the shallow roots appear above ground they put up tufts of leaves and if you cut out a small piece of attached root with a cluster on these shoots you gain a tree very easily. I put my piece in my pocket about 40 years ago and the tree has now overtopped everything else around it – even the silver birches. If anyone would like to grow one from my surface roots they are very welcome. I also have a Tree of Heaven (I’ve forgotten its proper Latin name) which also came from Rode in my pocket and that, as it name implies, vies with the balsam poplar in height. The only things that haven’t surpassed themselves this spring are the daffodils. Almost all of mine are blind and I see the usually solid line along the village verge and encircling the inner churchyard wall are mainly leaves with just the odd flower. I had a letter from a friend “back home” to say that all the daffodils in her paddock are blind this year so it’s not just a local failing. Maybe, as some random forms of flora do, they are just having a sabbatical year so we can expect extra glory next spring? I notice though that HUGE dandelions are yellowing the verge in compensation and primroses seem to have exploded everywhere. Where I had a number of small clusters in the orchard, this year they seem to have joined hands to produce an almost solid carpet. Along the hedgerow banks locally they seem to be excelling, too. And the 4 celandines in the churchyard! Breathtaking. There must be thousands – millions?- of little fluorsescent faces smiling at the sun, providing a carpet of gold. Another thing I have noticed - and so surely have others? – is the depth of blue in the sky on really fine, clear days. Not just a deep forget-me-not blue but more like the old Reckitts blue. Who of us remember the little blue cube wrapped in its muslin bag that was swished through the final rinse of “whites” in our mother’s and grandmother’s days? Is the sky colour something to do with a thinning ozone layer? My knowledge of meteorology is sparse. Any ideas anyone? One thing I have learned lately – there is a a name for my most favourite of all natural scents. When we get rain after a spell of dry sunny weather, immediately there arises an enticing and exhilarating, almost intoxicating, but sweetly fleeting smell which the ground gives off as the first rain hits earth and stone. I never know it had a name but I now gather it’s called petrichor. I hope everyone enjoyed a good Easter!

Hazell Tovey