Following A Tree 2026

 A month on from my first photo of the young Horse Chestnut beside the village hall where we have our Keep Moving Group.

Now it's Mid April

The leaves have begun to appear but not fully open as yet.

They really are brand new  Leaf Green 

Soon the 'candles' will grow and turn pink or white - I can't remember from seeing it last year which this one is. If white it's a common Horse Chestnut, if pink it's a hybrid, Aesculus carnea, often called a Spanish Horse Chestnut.

 Horse Chestnuts were introduced to Britain from the Balkans in the late 16th century but it wasn't until 200 years later when someone thought of the idea of playing conkers.

Anyone can enter the World Conker Championship if you fancy a trip to Northamptonshire in October. 

I just have them on the windowsills through winter and spring and no spiders seen for months.

Many thanks for all the Happy Birthday Wishes yesterday. I had some lovely cards and a very quiet day after another bike ride - now up to nearly 5 miles, which isn't too bad after more than two years of not cycling at all.

Back Tomorrow

Who Knew?

 Who knew there's a poem for all of us who have birthdays this month?

APRIL BIRTHDAY

When your birthday brings the world under your window

And the song-thrush sings wet-throated in the dew

And aconite and primrose are unsticking the wrappers

Of the package that has come today for you

Lambs bounce out and stand astonished

Puss willow pushes among the bare branches

Sooty hawthorns shiver into emerald

And a new air

Nuzzles the sugary

Buds of the chestnut. A groundswell and a stir

Billows the silvered 

Violet silks

Of the south  - a tenderness

Lifting through all the

Gently-breasted

Counties of England

When the swallow snips the string that holds the world in

And the ring-dove claps and nearly loops the loop

You just can't count everything that follows in the tumble

Like a whole circus tumbling through a hoop

Grass in a mesh of all flowers floundering

Sizzling leaves and blossoms bombing

Nestling hissing and groggy-legged insects

And the trees

Stagger, they stronger

Brace their boles and biceps under

The load of gift. And the hills float

Light as a bubble glass

On the smoke blue evening

And rabbits are bobbing everywhere, and a thrush

Rings coolly in a far corner. A shiver of green

Strokes the darkening slope as the land

Begins her labour.

TED HUGHES (1930 - 1998)

Just One Book

 A couple of times recently I've come home from a car-boot sale with nothing, (last weekend it was just a huge cauliflower), but I picked up this book from Needham Market on Easter Saturday for £1.

'Wyken, The Life of a Small Suffolk Estate' by Sir Kenneth Carlisle. Wyken is 7 acres and includes vineyard, restaurant, Country store and Farmers Market.

I wrote about Wyken Hall way back in July 2023 HERE after I'd re-read the book by his wife. After my visit there then for the Farmers Market I looked on the library website for this book but the only library copy is in The Hold (Archives  & Record Office etc ) in Ipswich and not borrowable. 

So it's taken nearly 3 years - but now I can read it -  perhaps everything turns up eventually.