Sunday Summary

Magnolia tree in the Town Park (30th April 2012),
for Straight Out of the Camera Sunday

The past week we had some really glorious pre-summer days with afternoon temperatures above +20 C, and clear blue skies like in the photos above.

Besides all the lovely pink cherry blossoms and white magnolias, the birches are turning green – and letting go of all their pollen with a big boom… well, not audible perhaps, but not unnoticed by all us allergics!

(Photo from last year)

So really hard just now to tell where my old virus-related bronchitis (since Easter) ends, and allergy problems begin! Yesterday we had a strong wind blowing all day and I knew there were lots of birch pollen in the air, so I stayed in (it was also rather grey and chilly so not all that tempting to go out anyway). Today the wind has calmed down and the sun seems to have come back out – so I suppose I shall venture a walk in a while.

Looking back in my photo archives, it seems spring sprang a little later this year than last year; but a little earlier than back in 2010. So I guess pretty normal! Somehow, even though we’ve been longing for it for months, it always seems to come as a bit of a surprise when it eventually does come.

Like how C.S. Lewis describes it in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:

… Only a few minutes later he noticed a dozen crocuses growing round the foot of an old tree – gold and purple and white. Then came a sound even more delicious than the sound of the water. Close beside the path they were following a bird suddenly chirped from the branch of a tree. It was answered by the chuckle of another bird a little further off. And then, as if that had been a signal, there was chattering and chirruping in every direction, and then a moment of full song, and within five minutes the whole  wood was ringing with birds’ music …