Spring on the hill

This walk begins with quite a steep uphill, overhung by beech trees:



Pippa played with a stick amongst the bluebells:



By the time we got to the top the sun had gone in, but this splash of yellow remained:

Midsummer Walkies

Today Pippa and I went to St Leonard's Forest which is part of the Sussex Weald, near Horsham.

(As ever, please click on pictures to enlarge them.)

This is her idea of a "walk":



With lots of sticks to play with:



We saw the last of the foxgloves:



and the first of the bramble flowers:



And the atmosphere felt like this:

Street pianos

Yesterday my husband was in London and reported to me that there are pianos there now, out on the street, that anyone can play. They have signs on saying "Play me, I'm yours". He played one.

Sadly they're not permanent, they're just in place until 13th July. An amazing idea though. It sounds like the kind of thing we would see abroad and say, "I wish they would do things like this in London but I can't imagine it ever working."

There's an article about it here.

Worcester station gate

This gate is at the back of Worcester Foregate Street railway station. The windows you can see behind it are of the station stair-case.

In the woods above Worth

Even where I park the car is pretty:



But Pippa wants to run so we set off:



pausing to admire more little flowers:



The foxgloves will be out soon:


From these tall trees comes the loudest birdsong of any of our walks:



The smaller trees either side cast shade,



but where the path broadens out and light gets in, the sandy soil here heats up quickly:



For all its mystery,



This is a working wood, with coppice:



as well as felling of large oaks:




Looking up into the arms of a beech tree:



The vigour of an oak bursting through its trunk:



The South Downs in the distance: we'll go there another day.

Walkies in the Ashdown Forest

(you can click on the pictures to enlarge them)

Pondering English things

A few minutes ago I read a pleasant and enjoyable blog entry about some dances at a cultural festival for spring. This was in the north of England. There were photographs of dances from southern Africa, from the Alps, and from France. There were none of English dances. Perhaps the blogger didn't happen to get a good shot of them; perhaps there were none at the festival. It did make me wonder though why dances and culture from abroad is often of so much more interest to English people than our own. I know we are very porous, very open (in many cases), and that tolerance or even eagerness to absorb outside influence is itself an English characteristic.

I thought briefly of morris-dancing, something I always love to watch but people I'm with seem to find somehow embarrassing.

I feel myself dashing to add all sorts of caveats and explanations here, about not wishing to return to the past, about recognising the fluidity of culture and so on. But instead I will choose to think that readers know I'm not a Daily Mail type. My blog, my thoughts.