On the verges of spring…

A bike ride. From vacant village streets to sunken lanes and hidden tracks, further on and deeper in, meandering past sleepy hamlets and isolated farms to Shave Cross, where Medieval monks once quaffed whilst they were coiffed. Then home, straight and fast, along the descending ridgeway...

And all along the way I was accompanied by a floral fringe; wild flowers unfolding on the verge of time and space. On the steeper banks are pale-faced primroses, still as fresh and faerie-like as the when they first appeared in January; the petals light and lemony - almost luminous against the darkling undergrowth. Traditionally, it was considered offensive to offer a friend or neighbour a posy with less than thirteen primrose flowers; but I can never bear to pick any – for fear of offending the faeries. Sharing the same colour theme, but at the opposite end of the yellow spectrum, is the greater glow of lesser celandines, like myriad gold coins scattered along the wayside. The travelling merchant must have been very rich, and careless, who passed this way this year… And a small patch of sweet white violets, soft and velveteen, demurely off-white - shrinking violets - and only ever smelt once, they say.

Amongst these familiar companions of spring, some new faces, or rather old friends suddenly seen again on their variable anniversary of bud-burst. Starry white stitchwort, with its sharp bright petals like the needles of Vestal virgins sewing together the various shapes and shades of green in the brimming verge vegetation. And cuckoo flower, a little precocious perhaps after this mild (wild) winter, whose first appearance once concurred with the first evocative calls of the cuckoo. It’s hard to attest their correlation now, as the cuckoo is sadly so seldom heard, even with its namesake faithfully blossoming in expectation. The plant’s other common name is Lady’s Smock – I suppose because the flower’s delicate colour is similar to the pastel shades of ladies’ dresses formerly worn on spring mornings. But to me the flower’s chalky-pink is reminiscent of Calamine lotion, which in my childhood was regularly and liberally applied over sun-exposed skin to tone-down a rosier, angrier hue...