A - Z Challenge - N: Noticing

Today is the first day of Spring, my favourite season of the year. Today is rainy so I am staying inside, but yesterday was the very best sort of day, the kind with sunshine and blue sky and little shimmers of colour in the corner of your eye wherever you looked. Remarkable really, as only seven days previously we'd been making snowmen. Only in England. 

This year the Spring Inspection is difficult for me. It's much lonelier, as my mum isn't here to see it and enjoy it with me; it was her favourite season too. We'd count down the days, stand by the window willing the weather to take a turn for the better and snuggling into blankets and throws while we waited. At the earliest opportunity we would carefully step outside to take a walk around the garden, latterly with mum leaning heavily on my arm and me always with an eye to the nearest bench or bit of wall on which to have a rest if she'd been on her feet too long. 

We'd wander round (always clockwise, for some reason) and hunt for signs of new growth. Tiny buds, leaves, shoots - any signs of life after the dullness of the winter hibernation.

Nothing went unnoticed as we gently cradled buds, avoided stepping on the crocuses and aconites, picked up fallen twigs from the silver birch or made mental notes of Things That Need Doing. 

Yesterday, Mothers' Day, I walked around the garden on my own and life was waiting for me. The snowdrops are nearly finished, the crocuses still spectacular and at their peak, daffodils just beginning. The hyacinths smell gorgeous, the muscari just beginning to bud and the currant bush looking as if it can't contain itself much longer.  

What undid me was the magnolia flower. Just the one flower on the stellata at the moment, although other buds are forming. The reason I stared at the single flower for so long with tears running down my face was that my Mum loved this little magnolia bush. It was a present from my brother and myself many years ago, but we had to move it from it's original spot  because of building work, and all gardeners know that magnolias are particularly grumpy about being moved. 

The star of the show

I was all for ditching it and buying another, to be honest, but Mum wouldn't have it, and she was in charge. So, we dug the biggest hole we could, took as much root as we could (it took two of us to lift it) and we planted it in a place far away from diggers and builders' feet, and we tended it as best we could. For years, the stellata sulked. No flowers for many a spring, then a handful of weedy, sickly looking  droopy flowers more like wilting splats than stars. In recent years it has looked definitely alive and doing ok, if not actually thriving, but I thought that maybe it was as good as it got. 

Every year there were the jokes about the magnolia that I wanted to kill, the one I didn't care about, the neglected one, the plant with hurt feelings - and here it was, one big, fat, happy-looking flower, and no Mum to see it. And, looking at the rest of the bush, this year looks like the year that I am forgiven. I'll post some more pics if I remember. 

I am reading a book at the moment about the importance of noticing things. Noticing the small things, the minute glimpses of joy and mystery and beauty. I realised that I used to write about it too - how the little things matter (sometimes vastly more than the so-called Big Things) and how the little things are vital for your soul. For my soul. I am determined to start noticing again.

It has been hard. I don't blame myself for shutting myself away from the world, withdrawing into myself and my small, insulated place of safety, because things have happened to us that meant it was the only way I could cope. I'm not sure there was another way, to be honest. But here, it's spring, with its newness and hope and it's sparkling, indomitable spirit, and, like that magnolia stellata, I must stop licking my wounds and harbouring my grievances and see if I can muster a flower. 

I have no idea if this is possible. If it turns out that it isn't, then alright, maybe some other time. I'm done with making promises (and this A-Z challenge is testament to that!) and I'm not ready to set goals. I just feel that I want to put it out there that this spring, heartsick as I am that Mum isn't here to see it, maybe I want to push towards the light with a new green shoot. 

Maybe nobody is looking, and that's alright. Maybe I am the only person to have noticed that immaculate stellata flower, but it would have opened its petals even if nobody ever saw it. It blooms because that's what it does. 

God notices. He doesn't miss a thing. 

And just as I gently lifted the magnolia flower between my fingers and lifted it to gaze full in its face, so He gently lifts my chin so that I can look in His face and notice that He is still there. 

A - Z Challenge - M: Murmuration

We went to see a murmuration of starlings. You know, the thing where a vast number of starlings collect in the air in one place and swoop and dance about in wonderful formation at dusk before settling to roost in trees? Also known as flocking (but that doesn't begin with M). Well, we went to see one.

A good friend of ours, a lifelong birdwatcher, nature lover, tree expert and all-round knowledgeable soul had good intel that starlings were doing their thing at this particular location at this particular time, and so we layered up well, laced up the walking boots (well, laced up the boots first in my case as I'm finding that it's increasingly difficult to reach my boots when I'm bundled up) and we climbed in the car full of expectation. 

We were there, but the starlings turned out not to be. Actually, that's not true - a few turned up ('Oh look! Here they are!') but were clearly either lost or discouraged by the absence of the Main Flock and went to bed early, and unspectacularly. Just enough to cause a short-lived ripple of excitement. 

Or not.

We stood in a field  in the Derbyshire countryside at dusk, on a February evening, in barely above zero degrees with only half a bag of mint imperials between us for sustenance, and the birds didn't show up. But you know what? It was fun. 

We walked up and down a bit. We stamped our feet and fumbled with mint imperials in thick gloves. We discussed which trees were which and saw a rabbit (or was it a hare? No, it was a biggish rabbit). We made up stories about abandoned farm buildings and secret drug rings and us on a hillside with binoculars.   We found a camera lens cap on the ground and decided it was definitely encouraging evidence that we were in the right place. We shared ideas about what we would do if we decided to do One New Thing each month that we had never done before. We chatted briefly with a fellow murmuration-hopeful who had seen a wondrous display only days previously! It was marvellous! Bad luck that when we turn out they have a day off. 

We trudged back down the path while we could no longer feel our feet and I did my best to climb into the car with knees that didn't want to bend, without muddying the white upholstery. Apparently the front seats are heated, but my husband had bagged the passenger seat. Still, I had the 'perials*. 

Home before we knew it and our friend was apologetic that it had been a wasted trip. But it hadn't been. 

We did something different. Speaking of 'One New Thing', I've never been to look at a murmuration before though I've seen them on Countryfile and often said that it's something I'd like to do. I'd like to see a murmuration one day. Maybe to see one you have to go and not see one quite a few times first. I gather it's bit like that in the birdwatching world**. 

We spent a happy couple of hours doing something. The last few years have been pretty awful and we haven't really done very much, so it was unusual. It was good to look outside for a while - outside ourselves and physically outside, despite the cold and the mud and the barren, bird-free landscape. It may not have been much but it was something, and something is better than nothing, and it's been nothing for quite some time. 

So I call that a win. 

*    When I was a kid, I thought these little round sweets that my mum always had (to aid digestion) were called Mintim Perials. So in our house they are still 'perials. 

**  Though my very limited experience of birdwatching has been different. When I was 17 I went out with a keen birdwatcher who invited me to come with him to look for nightjars in Clumber Park. (This was with the local chapter of the birdwatching society of which he was a member, before you see euphemisms everywhere.) We went, we sat in some bushes for hours on end and yes, a nightjar gamely turned up. It was summer, so not cold. Job done! Did it give me a taste for birdwatching? No.