It struck me the other day when I was running up hill, on a newly discovered route, how many wonderful colours nature has to offer and within that, the vast amount of differing shades of those colours. Now this may seem very obvious, but I was thinking how busy my own life gets, and that I sometimes lose touch with these delights that surround me in the landscape. The current situation we all find ourselves in gives us the perfect opportunity to slow down a little and appreciate those things that can so easily be missed.
It’s the incredible the amount of green out there- all the light, dark and fresh greens; how they look different next to other greens and other colours; and how the shades change when the wind blows them in another direction with the undersides of leaves and blades showing from a fresh green to a grey green. Once you start to notice this, it’s very hard to switch it off!
Everything seems so vibrant, the Bluebells and Vinca so purpley blue, the sharpness of the green and white of the Three-Cornered Leeks bordering all the hedges, the pale yellow of the fading primroses and the sunny yellow of the gorse. With the unfurling of ferns there is a curl of rusty brown and green, and the creamy whiteness of Cow Parsley provides a frothy lacy look along the lanes.
I also saw my first swallow of the year, swooping down the lane like a spitfire and when it turned in the sky, the sun picked out the iridescent black/blue of the feathers on its back. A pheasant can almost look black when hidden in the shade of the field, then rushing out into the light it becomes a triumph of greens, reds and golds; almost phoenix like.
There’s just so much colour out there to appreciate and wonder at, the ever changing sky and the varying lights and darks of the weather, the moodiness of the sea, the grass waving in the field, streams changing colour as they twist and turn and bump over stones. Like I said earlier, hard to switch off once you are tuned into it, and whilst it’s still mostly tranquil, I am going to go with the flow and embrace the palette of nature.
