Pink Week - Day 7: Hokay, That's Enough Pink Already

Pink Week - Day 6: Thank Goodness It's Nearly Over

Pink Week - Day 5: Surprise Surprise: More Pink

Pink Week - Day 4: I Think I Just Grew a Tutu

Pink Week - Day 3: If I'm Not Gay By Friday It'll Be A Miracle

Pink Week - Day 2

It's Pink Week. You Better Wear Shades.

They're Heeeeeere …

At long last, spring has sprung along Cherry Walk and gaudy petticoat pinkness abounds.

Do click on these to enlarge them. I mean: how gorgeous is that?

Look one way and St.Peter Mancroft is frilled with pink blossom …

Look t'other way and it's City Hall getting mugged by Barbara Cartland.

Pink … PINK! AUGH! The whole world has gone pink …

… with blue around the edges.

Er … I hope you like pink; if not, this post is really going to suck.

Somebody who does like pink is our Lynn, who first visited Cherry Walk a couple of years back and who is long overdue for another overdose of the pink frillies. If she hurries, she might get an eyeful of our next eagerly anticipated blossomfest: the wisteria at St.Giles (see many a past year's posts).

Still Not Quite Spring

It was bloody cold on Cherry Walk this morning and only the very first few buds had burst. I stood and froze for almost fifteen minutes waiting for a tiny break in the clouds to give me about thirty seconds of sunshine for photography.

Most of the trees are still bare and only the most sheltered ones by St.Peter Mancroft tower are showing any sign of blossoming.

Lots of good buddy action, though. By next Saturday they'll all be over and the weather is set shitty for the week so this is all I'll be able to get this year. Hey ho.

The sun went in again almost as soon as it came out and then it was dark grey clouds and biting wind again. So much for the approach of May.

Still, there's always next year …

Just so we remember: this is how they should have looked three weeks ago (from a couple of years back).
Where do I go to get a refund on a faulty season?

Lunch With The Dead

Click on this to blow it up. It's really worth it.
The white cherry in St.Stephen's churchyard is always about a week earlier than the big. blowsy, pink Japanese cherries on Cherry Walk and yesterday lunchtime saw a woman brave (or foolish) enough to shiver through the freezing wind and enjoy a spot of lunch amid the gravestones.
This year's blossom is several weeks late but a really welcome sight nonetheless. The trees in Cherry Walk are still bare nekkid, but maybe if we get a sunny weekend … Watch this space.

Arboricultural Ejaculation

Last week's sticky-bud (here, if you don't recall it), has become this week's sexed up exhibitionist.

Your visual treat for the day: a horse chestnut with a boner. I love horse chestnuts. They have beautiful flowers, amusingly hand-like leaves and they give us conkers (yay). Plus, of course, any excuse to say "æsculus hippocastanum" out loud is to be treasured. Try to slip it into a phone conversation.

Yesterday Morning

At last a sign that spring is on its way, even if it is two months late. Blue sky (though cold enough for a ground frost), Castle Blancheflower and a veil of beech buds.

Meanwhile … A Whole Month Late …

We had a spring last year.

The sun shone and plants had sex.

Some people did, too … though not me of course.

And as per usual the Wisteria at St.Giles Church were out in mid April.

This year we have had a grinding, relentlessly dull, dreary and rainy late winter dragging us into the depths of depression and bitter resentment for month after miserable month.

"The rain it raineth every day" ("I stole that from Willie the Shake*")

* I stole that from Joni Mitchell …

But at long last: two whole days without a cloud!

Two! Count 'em! Two whole glorious fucking sunny days!

Suddenly it's stinkingly hot and the wisteria have woken up to realise it's almost smegging June and they should have been frantically shagging for weeks already.

Last night at Tony's gig we spent most of the evening outside on the patio, watching the crescent moon sink into a sapphire sky.

Folk in places like California (hi, guys) take this sort of thing for granted, but as this is the first time we on the east coast of Blighty have seen the sky since February it cast a magical spell that lasted well into the early hours. It was that good. Really. Had there been anybody there willing to mate with me things would indeed have gotten all unnecessary.

As it was I lay on my back with my binoculars, getting my first view of the year of such wonders as M13 and other delights that hide behind the horizon most of the year and only peep out in mid-summer.

Unfortunately, this far north at this time of the year it doesn't get dark enough for decent astronomy until after midnight, and then you've only got a couple of hours before the light starts creeping back into the sky.

Having missed an entire spring-worth of stargazing I'm making the most of what might turn out to be the only clear weekend until winter.

And of course wandering around the city taking photos for the first time in months.

Have a spiffy weekend, people.

Make the most of me being happy. It'll last as long as the sunshine.