As we move towards summer.

Today a speckled brown butterfly threaded a random flight across the path. Today She rescued the brightest lizard from a curious cat, placed it in the safety of an old stone wall. Bright frogs move in the grass, wait under primrose flowers, watch from the safety of emerald shadows and covet the warm places. Soon there will be snakes.

We curl in the sunshine on slates warmed to  soft smoothness by the distant fire way off in the sky.

Tonight is the fresh of the darknight. No moon. Only star light. And how they shine in a million brilliant shades of bright. Tonight there are aerymice, flit flicker and flash, darker shapes in a dark sky, silhouettes in starlight. And owls slow flap hunting the hedges.

Egg Hunt

We walked up the hill looking for eggs and the Easter Hare, with Hannah and Kim and Tom.

And the eggs were hidden and hard to find but the grass was green and the gorse rich with flowers smelling of coconut. Shy violets and celandine begin to bloom and dot the lane with colour.

Tangled in the twisted branches of the ancient gorse bushes secret golden eggs lay in small clutches.

We walked across the top of the hill to look at the sea. In the lane the high stone walls sheltered us from the worst of the wind. On the top our ears were blown flat, eyes narrowed to small slits. But the sea was huge and dancing. And on the way back we helped the children find more hidden eggs, wrapped in bright foil colours and shining.
But we did not catch even a glimpse of the Easter Hare. Maybe she was resting.

Light and flight and a courtship dance of love

There is a certain slant of light that shines bright on a ginger cat and makes every hair glow with an orange gloss.

Sunshine peeled us away from the stretched out comfort of the sofa of ginger and into the wilds. Although the wind on the top of the hill was cold the sunshine held a whisper of spring that could be clearly felt in sheltered places where fingers of wind could not reach. We could hear the sea on the faraway shore, rolling onto the sand.

A sky so blue, landscape still coloured by the russet bones of bracken and the sky criss-crossed by the vapor trails of distant dragons.

Around Pixie, on the rock, small brown bells that had been purple heather flowers rattled in the cold. Elmo hid in the dark sun shadow and watched the world moving towards spring, the buzzards circle together and the raven dance a courtship dance of joy.