17th April

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Still catching up!

"Hay is become very scarce and dear indeed! My rick is now almost as slender as the waist of a virgin; and it would have been much for the reputation of the last two brides that I have married, had their waists been as slender... The first swallow that I heard of was on April 6th., the first nightingale April 13th. The great straddle-bob, Orion, that in the winter seems to bestride my brew-house, is seen now descending of an evening, on one side foremost behind the hanger." Gilbert White, 1786 (Hampshire)

"I saw a robin chasing a scarlet butterfly this morning." Dorothy Wordsworth, 1802 (Westmorland)

"Saw a shoal of salmon in the river and many hares on the open hills. Under a stone hedge was a dying ram: there ran slowly from his nostril a thick flesh-coloured ooze, scarlet in places, coiling and roping its way down, so thick that it looked like fat... Magnetic weather, sunlight soft and bright, colours of fells and fields far off seeming as if dipped in watery blue." Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1873 (Lancashire)


Another grey and damp morning, but it wasn't actually raining and the birds were very loud as I walked along the road. And Little Tree is looking very green these days! ... the cloud lightened though, and this evening the world was looking more promising still.
Byslantedlight, 2009 (Cambs.)


The most gorgeous Spring day today, so that I had to go out somewhere - sun shining, blossoms blossoming and birds twittering away down every lane! And Little Car found it to be mid-twenties, though I daresay that was cos she was sitting in it, baking... Little Tree is looking very green now too! Byslantedlight, 2010 (Suffolk)

18th April

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

"This morning I married John Knight and Elizabeth Austin at Langley Burrell Church. It was April weather with showers and gleams by whiles... Rice and flowers were showered upon the bride in the porch and churchyard. There were three carriages with greys and postilions in scarlet." FrancisKilvert, 1876 (Wiltshire)

"Yesterday there was deep snow, though the trees are in bloom. Plum trees and cherry trees full of blossom look so queer in a snow landscape, their lovely foamy fullness goes a sort of pinky drab, and the snow looks fiendish in its cold incandescence. I hated it violently." D.H. Lawrence, 1918 (Berkshire)

2009

The promise of sunshine first thing this morning, although it's already clouded over a little - high, brown-grey clouds, blowing very quickly across in the wind that has also risen up. It still looks like a nice day, but...
Byslantedlight, 2009 (Cambs.)

2010

Blue skies this year too - and green Little Tree, and May blossom across the fields!
Byslantedlight, 2010 (Cambs.)