Poppies red in the fields

Wild poppies are studding the fields right now. 
They are all the more sombrely significant as August's World War One commemorations draw nearer.

Anniversary with real tins

It's Flower Festival time in many country churches right now. A number of local voluntary groups will agree to submit flower arrangements, all on a theme, and so the church is filled with many different displays.  The local community turns up to admire the displays, and everyone has a cup of tea.

At Cauldon Church, the theme was 'wedding anniversaries', and the display in the photo was for the tin, or 10th, wedding anniversary.
It used, naturally enough, real tin-cans...

Red splashes in the fields

The red poppies are making brilliant splashes in the fields, and all the more colourful for being mixed in with plants of different hues.

Hot today - but who knows how soon it will change again?

Sumer is icumen in

What a bizarre country we live in.  Just a few weeks ago, it was unremitting bleak, snow-ridden weather.
And today?  Brilliant, hot sunshine with Spring flowers hastily bursting into bloom before they lose their season altogether, and blossom seemingly instantaneous.

Bagnall village was just one of the many places where this type of fiercely red tulip was putting on a show.

Nurture and non-nurture

I walked past this crop of poppies the other day. The splendour and size of them were just one piece of evidence to all the rain we’ve had recently.

So I looked for them again today – but, now, virtually all the petals were gone, blasted away by the heavy winds of two days ago.

Nature giveth – and it taketh away, eh?

It's Spring! I think.

Daffodils! The first of the year for me, though I've already seen snowdrops, and there are primroses a-plenty this year too.

If daffodils are the first sign of Spring, then this winter, by my reckoning, must have been one of the shortest I've known. I estimate it lasted just six weeks.

But never under-estimate Winter. It could come back to bite us!

Floral Uttoxeter

'Britain in Bloom' time is upon us as I remarked a few days ago. The competition judges which towns and villages are doing their best to put on a florally attractive face.
The judges have been out and about for a few weeks now; and the results will be known in September.

Uttoxeter has certainly put on a show...