May
The valley is drenched in yellow buttercups, purple clover and white daisies. I can hear Richard Burton reciting Wordsworth in my head and a Vaughan Williams hymn is rising in my heart.
The fields are knee deep in a billowing, fluid growth of every colour imaginable. The breeze is stirring, shimmering and refreshing the pasture. Our early summer has brought forth a profusion of blossom, more than I can ever remember. Nothing is more exhilarating, yet gentle and relaxing too. The dogs scamper around me and explore everywhere. Constantly in the background is the bleating of the lambs and the comforting of the ewes.
This morning, almost home, half way down the hill, I had stopped to chat with a wild flower hunter. Above us, as so often, rose a great raptor with huge and glorious brown wings – yet even to my naive eye, this one was different.
“Red Kite!”, called out my companion. No common or garden or Paradise Valley buzzard this one. A distinctive forked tail, an extra kink towards the tip of each wing and yes, a burnished, reddish plumage. A fine sight!
The weather has been kind to us and through the hot, dry spring we have caught some good, generous rain, always just in time. The new pasture fields have finally taken off. They’ve been topped for the first time and now the grass will start to grow deep and strong.
You might guess that one again I am entranced by the valley’s beauty as it moves into its most glorious season. Every year it seduces me again as if I have never fallen for such charms before.
There are bright yellow, wild lilies along the stream in the water meadow. A remarkable amount of rape has seeded itself from last year’s crop in the new pasture and sent a yellow shock through it that’s just a little too bright and dense to be buttercups. The new born lambs have benefitted from their warm start and the early ones are almost as big as their mothers.
I suppose it’s all in dramatic contrast to that other reality of life – the news, the economy, business, bills, the dark side. Thank God that we live in a world where even in our towns and cities, the natural world imposes its timeless and calming antidote on our woes. One early morning, an urban fox across a Fulham backstreet and then, just three hours later, a return to the wilder environment of the valley. Britain is beautiful when the weather is good.
I returned to the green, green grass of home just last weekend across the Severn bridge but to come back to my adopted home in the valley is just as warming and more familiar now. Home is where the heart is, where the keyboard and screen is always waiting but where just outside are the fields and the hills and the flowers and paradise.
Written by Peter Reynolds
May 14, 2011 at 2:25 PM
Posted in Paradise Valley, Walking The Dog
Tagged with blossom, breeze, Britain, buttercup, buzzard, clover, dog, ewe, fox, Fulham, lamb, lily, pasture, raptor, red kite, Richard Burton, Severn bridge, Vaughan Williams, water meadow, wild flower, Wordsworth
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Saturday 14 May 2011
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