Hide and seek
Spring's reluctant to commit just now - but so am I. It's cold out there.
It only just struck me that, on the days I walk into town to my job at the bookshop, something important takes place…
That ten minutes or so, between parking my car on the busy main road, and walking through the park and along the towpath, gifts me my own personal insight into the seasons. More specifically, where we are in the season. Because each can be divided into early, mid and late. Spring begins with celandines and the last of the snowdrops, peaks with oceans of bluebells, and ends with hawthorn blossom and wild roses.
My short walk provides an opportunity to decompress from the rush of leaving the house on time, navigating my way through the school traffic, finding a spot to leave the car. It’s a moment of calm before getting into work, and I extract everything I possibly can from it by just noticing.
This is my little microcosm, where everything’s distilled and captured within an invisible orb, an ever-changing gallery.
There are trees and shrubs, birds and flowers. On Wednesday morning it was bitterly cold (the previous night’s sky having been that cloudless, clear indigo with a perfect moon suspended in it). I regretted not wearing gloves. But the euphorbia in the park was a brilliant shade of acid yellow, the trees were putting out delicate blossom, and the banks of ivy beside the footbridge were rustling and shaking with avian activity.
There are white and sugared plum-coloured hellebores nodding away behind the theatre, and the forsythia in the park’s just coming into flower. Geese (wild ones, not the crotchety gaggle who threaten shoppers on the Co op car park) peck about the verges and are no doubt scouting potential nesting sites.
Clouds of fragrance drift from the Mahonia - intense, considering they’re not in full flower just yet - and the beds along the footpaths are starry with diminutive daffodils.
Yesterday I took the train to Halifax. The fog was dense, the drive down to the station difficult as the visibility was so poor. It was chilly, and as I waited on the platform I regretted my outfit choice (thin sweatshirt, Converse trainers, trench coat. NO VEST). But the journey itself was interesting, if short. Northern Rail had clearly been out trimming trees (quite brutally) and they rose like spectres from the gloom, their branches reduced to charcoal sticks.
I had places to go, things to do. But nothing too taxing. A spontaneous visit to the Polish delicatessen resulted in my procuring a loaf of Lithuanian bread - moist, sweet with honey and a hint of fennel from the caraway seeds. Having skipped breakfast, the sight of pillowy, icing sugar-dusted paczki was too much to resist and I bought one. They’re traditional Polish donuts, and this was generously filled with pastry cream: rich, silky, and oozing. It was, (sticky) hands down, the best donut I’ve ever had.
As I walked along and - to avoid a face full of icing sugar - pulled the paczki apart with my fingers, I felt inspired to go to the library in search of Eastern European cookery books. So I did.
It was my last stop, and because the library’s so close to the station, this was well-planned because I came out with an armful of hefty titles. I was looking forward to getting them home, drinking a mug of coffee to thaw out and flipping through the pages of lovely photographs and recipes.
Alighting from the train and walking down the steep path behind the platform, I was heartened to see the bare ground blooming with primroses: sprawling patches of them, butter-yellow petals above crinkly green leaves.
The deer are back.
Four of them, ghostly in the morning fog, but they returned later to feast on the grass, left sparkling with dew as the mist lifted. The previous day they’d eyed me warily as I drank my tea in the garden. And watched as our most vocal cat caught sight of me and came galloping down the hill from the farm, loudly announcing his arrival.
I bought some daffodils the other evening: those multiheaded ones with small flowers and slender stems, which emit a gorgeous lemony perfume. Spring flowers are always so welcome at this time of the year.
Tomorrow I’ve got a lot of driving to do. I’m heading over to Lancashire and will take my brother to our mother’s grave so we can lay flowers. The sadness is always tempered by a visit to the walled gardens and I intend to take my camera. I suspect it’s a bit too early for the spectacular magnolias they have there, but no doubt there’ll be plenty of other green and growing things to admire, and touch, and smell.
There’s something about a kitchen garden. And when it’s a little kingdom of its own, nestled behind tall brick walls… it’s the stuff of dreams. My dreams, anyway.
Our own garden’s slowly stirring but so far we’ve only got téte à téte daffodils, a clump of hellebore and the flowering currant starting to open its buds. The weather seems to be doing that seesawing thing: one day it’s blue, and hazy, and mild, and the next it’s wet and windy and cold. Admittedly, I don’t feel the urge just yet to get out there and dig.
Hopefully tomorrow will give me some inspiration. The forecast for the morning is sunny spells followed by light cloud (which sounds just right for photography). We can choose a bench in the walled garden and talk and laugh - because that’s what me and my brother always do - and recall stories about growing up. The ones where there’s nobody left to remember, just us two. We can drink tea and perhaps eat cake, as our mum would have expected.
Mother’s Day always feels sad when your own mother is no longer there. But I’m fortunate to have so many beautiful memories to draw on.
A week on Sunday, actual Mother’s Day, I intend to potter about at home. Plant some seeds, bake, read. Even now, after almost fourteen years of actually being a mother, I never consider it as ‘my’ day. I’ve always thought of it in terms of my own mother and grandmother: buying cards and flowers. It’s still a bit of a surprise when I receive those things myself.
Of course, everyone’s situation is unique. I hope that your weekend is a gentle one, and that - if you too have lost your mother or are in the sad process of doing so - you have happy memories to hold onto and sustain you.
Thank you for reading.
Sarah.