One thing I shared with my mother is an affinity with woodland and its flowers. Mum would come alive beneath a canopy of beech or oak leaves; she was a sort of elven creature who couldn’t breathe properly in town, but needed mossy banks upon which to dance.
And Mum had two particular favorite flowers: wood anemones and bluebells; and hence these two became a significant a part of my childhood too – spring has never been just spring, but rather it is divided into ‘celandine spring’, ‘wood anemone spring’, and ‘bluebell spring’. We are on the turning point right now, as the anemones are laying down their heads and the bluebells are coming into the fullness of their remarkable wealth.
Re preparing for the walk, the twizzling-my-left-knee exercise, mentioned last week, is working a treat. I have also been preparing my route on .gpx software in footpath-specific detail. Look out for the entire route next Sunday!
