The white stars of wood anemone were sprinkled amidst the greenery and across the sluggish creek was a woodsy waterlogged bottom meadow peppered with buttercups. Aside from the crows, everything was still. The wind, which assails Skåne from all sides most days, had died and little summer insects were drifting about, in no hurry.
I love the spring, when everything is new again and everywhere you look something is opening, budding, or putting forth. It never bores me, never tires me, never wears me out. I walk and walk, glancing to left, to right, and each thing I see, each new growth, flowers inside my mind as well, with a tag attached for memory. "Remember this," my brain whispers as I walk. Remember this. The neon-green pearl-seed-button tips on the evergreens. The tiny pearly-purpled peppercorn-sized juniper berries. The dusty raspberried-pendant not-yet-blossoms dangling like swinging earrings from a purple beech. The fuzzy-caterpillars of green and white blossoms on the willows. The burbling liquid trill of a blackbird that came from everywhere at once, as if the very air itself were singing.
All around me flowers were closing down for the evening, their working hours over. Sorry, bees, välkommen åter.
***
A family birthday here at home tomorrow, then choir, then book group, then sushi night, all followed by a family-free 2-day weekend of deep, deep spring-cleaning. Bet you're looking forward to THAT post! Ah, the smell of cleanser in the morning!
Great Big Gobs of Happy Birthday Wishes for My Darling Swede-y, Anders!
Wild, Warm and Wonderful Birthday Wishes Present, to PaperNapkin Sheryl, and Past to
*Stephen Wright
**flew-leaped