Sunday Walk

 It was the last Sunday, sunny warm day.

Recently I found some brochures for country walks in the region.  I wanted to try one of the walking courses, called 'Salmon Leaps Walk'.  This time of the year was not unlikely to see salmons leaping in the stream there, but the course is located near by our house and just behind my favourite woodlands and I haven't been there.

We parked at the end of a small village, then went toward the stream.  The sign for the course was clearly indicated.  So you can't miss the start point.

The stream was filled with water plants such as water cress and reed.  A bunch of bamboo and winter heliotrope kept away from the bank.

As we walked, we saw quite a lot of fallen trees.  Some fell in the woods, some were over the stream, which might have block salmons leaping and others lay on the footpath.

The footpath was alongside the stream between hills, where the sunlight didn't reach a lot.  It was chilly and damp.  Those fallen trees are gradually decade by little spices.  Here and there we saw thriving mushrooms and fungus, and moss on the dead trunks.

At the end of the walk at the stream, we walked up to the hill.  There were wild daffodils in the shade, awaiting to bloom.

It was so calm and sunny.  We felt the early spring.  The bare trees were changing for the spring.

Cows were just fed in the mud.  A cow was looking at us curiously.  There was no one around us.

We didn't see any salmon (of course), but enjoyed the quiet sunny Sunday walk.

Calendar February 2015: Snowdrop -Fair Maids of February-

February: Snowdrops

(Galanthus nivalis, Fair Maids of February, lily family)

'Fair Maids of February'.  I didn't know such a sweet another name of snowdrop.  I found the name in a book, which was written by an Edwardian naturalist, Edith Holden, in the early 1900's.(The book, 'The Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady', wasn't the original edition (edition in 1977), though.)  She recorded a whole year of the flora and fauna in the countryside in England.  

In a page of February She cited a poem by Hartley Coleridge.  The poem seems to be well-known in the UK.  I didn't know it.  In my town there is a Coleridge Avenue.  But I didn't know it was the name of a poet in the 18 and the 19 Centuries.

Anyway, snowdrop in the poem is a symbol for the beginning of the next season after the dark winter, which brings the liveliness and the brightness onto the dark ground.  What I found interesting is that Edith Holden in the early 1900s as well as Hartley Coleridge in the mid 1800s had shared the same feeling about snowdrops.

After December solstice, I feel it is getting brighter and longer every day.  Here, in south Wales, the winter is mild and wet.

Snowdrop's greyish green leaves sprout from the ground, where they get enough sunlight and are well protected from the cold bitter wind through the winter.  A few snow-white drop-like buds would be appearing at the beginning of February in our garden.  

But this year I found small buds of snowdrops in our garden in the forth week of January.  According to an article of Woodland Trust last year, spring has arrived gradually earlier over the last 25 years.  Hopefully snowdrops will not be 'Fair Maids of January' soon!