Windflowers

One of the things I love most about Spring is the way that things happen all of a sudden (or, of course, maybe it's just that all of a sudden you notice them). For example, yesterday . . . this is yesterday's post, really, I was just far too tired by the time I got in last night! . . . yesterday I drove past an area of woodland I pass very often, where there is always a good spread of wood anemones, and, while I swear that a couple of days ago as I passed there was nothing to see, yesterday the ground was carpeted with these beautiful and seemingly delicate flowers.

I say seemingly delicate, but I suppose in fact they must be as tough as old boots. Like many woodland flowers, their job is to get going as early as possible in the year, before the leaf canopy blocks out the light and get their flowers open and their fruit set. Our mild winter will have given this year's anemones a good start, but they need to get going whatever the weather - anyway, it's a treat to see them, and each one of these new signs of Spring growth is, in a way (even though of course I know they're all going to happen) a welcome surprise.

I love the way people say, as they do, "Oh, the days are opening out!" as though they had never expected it would happen. Somewhere at heart, despite all our scientific knowledge and worldly sophistication, we do still have a little sliver of primaeval uncertainty: will the spring really come, will the sun really grow strong again? - to which the anemone as it suddenly carpets the woodland, is able to speak.