Today is a calm and serene day after the gale force winds and torrential rain of the past weeks, however it is a cold day, the temperature is just six degrees.
We are passing mile after mile of flooded fields.
The roadside verges are made pretty by the subtle colours of winter, last year's straw coloured dead and dried grasses still stand tall, stiff bare, red stemmed shrubs rise up from the verges, shining sunlit silver birch trunks and branches catch our eye, while still clinging tenaciously to bare branches, are last year's rusty coloured oak leaves and mid brown dry bunches of sycamore seeds (we used to refer to these as sycamore keys when I was a child). Mossy green lichen festoons trunks and branches of trees, while red rose hips and deeper red haws are still hanging in abundance. The long arms of old man's beard have reached far and can be seen draping over and curtaining bushes.
The dark green leaves of bramble have stretched and spread their prickly extensions winding over, under, around and through anything in their way. The intention being to drop to the earth as often as possible and sink new roots into the ground, in order to self perpetuate the plant. Anyone who has ever tussled with these plants will know how successfully they manage this, the grip of the new roots is fearsome in a very short time. One of my favourites, hazel catkins are still prettying the roadside edges and can now be seen in varying shades of green, yellow and brown. Today it is windless, there is no noticeable movement of air and the catkins hang still.
On the A10 just north of Ware we spot our first red kite and as we reach Reed we see our second, this is exciting because it is not often we see red kites so near to home. (Although we did once see one above our garden).
Just before we reach Royston we see a whole roadside area thickly covered by snowdrops, they are so beautiful, a little further on is a bank spangled with bright yellow daffodils, against the strong green of the grass they look stunning.
On the verge of the A505 we passed about a dozen crows, which I was delighted to see. Their glossy black coats shining in the bright sunshine and them moving busily about digging in the grass.
At Bassingbourne, the landscape views across the beautiful English countryside, stretch for miles and they are a pleasure to drive through. Here we also see fields of unusually coloured sheep, they are deep brown and off white and very eye catching.
A little further on we see the very grand back gate to Wimpole Hall, where a flock of crows fly over us and almost immediately we see a typical English woodland, prettily bedecked by snowdrops. It will be interesting later on to see if bluebells also grow there.
Willow trees are very pretty at this time of year, their long pendulous branches are just showing first signs of fresh, new spring growth. It is very attractive, but a strange colour to describe, in the sunshine it is a pale, golden brown but shaded growth is a fresh light spring green colour.
At intervals we see young saplings growing alone on the verge and we are amused to see not bare branches but what looks like an enormous mop head. This is because last year, old man's beard snaked up the trees and entwining itself, flowered in the uppermost branches, now the flowers have died and become glorious large, silver-grey, fluffy seed heads, adorning the young trees and causing them to look for all the world, like old fashioned kitchen floor mops.
No comments:
Post a Comment