10th May

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Sorry - here we go again with the catching up...

"Nothing but cold east winds, accompanied with sunshine... At the beginning of this month I saw fruit trees in blossom, stretched out flat against stone walls, reminding me of a dead bird nailed against the side of a barn... The east-wind feels even rawer here than in the city [Liverpool]." Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1857 (Lancashire)

2009

Another wind-swept but blue-skied day, warm and sunny and rather beautiful...and managing to be full of drama at the same time! Byslantedlight, 2009 (Cambs.)

2010

Monday was... what was Monday? Sunny, cloudy, sunny, cloudy... neither warm nor properly cold... Monday was Spring. Byslantedlight, 2010 (Cambs.)

11th May

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

"In the clough (the bluebells) came in falls of sky-colour washing the brows and slacks of the ground with vein-blue." Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1871 (Lancashire)

"This is the bitterest bleakest May I ever saw... A black bitter wind violent and piercing drove from the east with showers of snow. The mountains and Clyro Hill and Cusop Hill were quite white with snow. The hawthorn bushes are white with may and snow at the same time." Francis Kilvert, 1872 (Radnorshire)

"Bluebells in Hodder wood, all hanging their heads one way. I caught as well as I could while my companinions talked the Greek righeousness of their beauty, the lovely - what people call - 'gracious' bidding one to another or all one way, the level or stage or shire of colour they make hanging in the air a foot above the grass, and a notable glare the eye may abstract and sever from the blue colour - of light beating up from so many glassy heads, which like water is good to float their deepest instress upon the mind." Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1873 (Lancashire)

2009

Another lovely morning...and the day stretched out until ten o'clock at night!
Byslantedlight, 2009 (Cambs.)

2010

A dramatic march of clouds yesterday as I drove home - from one angle they actually looked yellow-gold inside, but I was still in my car then and with no camera - bad byslantedlight. Behind them was a roiling mass of darkness...


...and even the crows perched high, and watched the edge of darkness pass by... and then the sun came out, and everything was happy-golden again, so that was alright!
Byslantedlight, 2010 (Cambs.)

12th May

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

"The rhubarb-tart good, and well flavoured." Gilbert White, 1790 (Hampshire)

"A real May-day at last; warm, west wind, sunshine; birds singing as if hearts would burst; four or five blackbirds all in hearing at once... song of thrush more varied even than nightingale; if rare, people would go miles to hear it, never the same in same bird, and every bird different; fearless, too." Richard Jefferies, 1879 (Surrey)

2009

Another day of skies, high skies... Byslantedlight, 2009 (Cambs.)

2010

Cool again today, enough for gloves on my bike this morning, but not my fleece! An odd day though - it thought about raining, but didn't really, it thought about being sunny, but wasn't really. Finally it decided to go with a pretty sunset - which I just missed!
Byslantedlight, 2010 (Cambs.)