May: the fairest month of all

Peak spring arrives with May, and it’s beautiful out there in the countryside. Although as this spring has been a very dry season many of the trees have noticeably less leaves, so the canopy is currently quite open compared to the full density that you would see after a damp spring. I keep hoping for rain, and we have had a little in May, but not nearly enough.

The lack of rain has also affected the orchard, where there the apple blossom was a lot more sparse than I have seen in some previous years. The hardy hawthorns though have been glorious, and in full bloom from the beginning of the month. The hawthorn tree is woven into folklore and social history, and prevalent in the countryside. Lone hawthorn trees have long been viewed as portals to the fairy realm, and to cut one down was considered to bring bad luck.  And the hawthorn also symbolises love, fertility and protection, with medieval May brides often carrying a posy of hawthorn blossom, also called May blossom, or wearing it in their hair, and branches of blossoming hawthorn hung over doorways to invite luck and prosperity in for May day or Beltane at the start of the month.

Hawthorn also has an English traditional rural name of ‘bread and cheese’ as the plentiful and tender new shoots were foraged and eaten by country folk in bygone times when winter food stores were running low. There is a lane near to one of our walks named Bread and Cheese Lane which still has many hawthorns along the hedgerows there.

Although there seem to be less leaves on many trees the oaks have noticeably larger leaves this year, some almost the size of my hand. Last year was a mast year for the oak trees and they produced enormous numbers of acorns, which takes a huge amount of tree energy, so in the year following a mast year they concentrate energy into leaf and branch growth rather than seed production, which is why many oak leaves this year are supersized.

The hornbeam trees however seem to have decided on this year for their peak seed spreading, as most are festooned with delicate samaras, the winged seeds that will disperse on autumn breezes, they look so pretty swinging from the branches.

Back at home there has of course been knitting, some work on patterns, and more socks. The pair I’m currently working on are knitted in precious stashed yarn from the Wool Barn (sadly Maya is no longer producing hand-dyed yarn) and I’m leaning into my slight obsession for simple stripes. I am playing yarn chicken and hoping that I have enough of the soft blue colour to finish the second sock, it seems to be running out more quickly that anticipated

Most of the rest of my free time is still taken up with rebuilding this blog, though I am now only a single years worth of posts away from completing the task. You may remember that my former blogging service typepad closed with very little warning last October and although I was able to import all of the written posts into this new blog here I have had to manually go through and add in all of the images to those posts. There are over 900 posts, and thousands of images so as you might imagine it has been a very time consuming task. But it has also been a rewarding one and I have greatly enjoyed looking back over the last 19 years worth of images. Something that hit me quite hard though was how much life has changed since Toby left school and looking back at images of how family life used to be brought into sharp focus how much less time I have these days to spend on the things that I used to enjoy such as baking and gardening and just pottering around, but I am now trying to weave those small pleasures back into my days again.

Seeing the pictures of how our garden used to look here and here, full of plants and small creatures, made me realise just how much I have missed having a pretty outdoor space that is helpful to nature. Gardening has been absent from my days for quite a few years now and the garden has become a little neglected, so a few new plants have now been added, along with a small bed of herbs, it is a modest start but it will hopefully continue.

Our neighbourhood has suffered greatly from habitat loss over the last 10 years. When we moved here 30 years ago every garden had several small trees and lots of shrubs and most had vegetable patches and varied flower beds. As the older generation have died or moved away these mature and wildlife rich gardens, sometimes lovingly tended for 40 years or more, have been completely decimated by the new neighbours in favour of fence-to-fence lawn (in some cases even the plastic kind) and decking and one neighbour has entirely paved over the whole of their back garden. Gardens are such a vital habitat and source of food for all manner of insect, amphibian and small mammal life, and although our garden is small, I hope to make a better space for nature to flourish a little here at our home. There is at least one wild creature that does enjoy spending time in our garden, Katsue the fox is still a regular visitor and continues doing well after her injury earlier in the year,

Well, I’m off to water the new plants, they need it with this lack of rain, until next time keep well and happy, J x