72 micro-seasons 55...

Janey...

Springlike sunshine, yet the wuthered hawthorn where the stonechats hide is bare

Kit...

Round the rusty hay feeder a stare of cows, the colour of crows, conkers and cream - winter feeding's begun.

Jane...

Branches shift, leaves quiver and fall. Clouds fly above us.

Helen...

Dark soft soil seems to welcome the alium bulbs we push down, dreaming of spring.

Beverley...

It’s November and a patch of hollyhocks is in full bloom.

72 micro-seasons 54...

Janey...

Winter whispers in my ear, though honeysuckle still scents a sheltered wall

Jane...

Birds swoop and lift and plough in a grey sky, halt in the thin rust shelter of beech and cherry.

Helen...

At dusk the autumn colours spill into the air, and light itself seems pink and orange.

Beverley...

Blueless, windless days. Leaves falling on breath. The linden tree is bare.

Kit...

Hallelujah for Persicaria, the last raspberry blush of colour in my tangle of floral decay.

'Jeanie'

Washed by salty tears, 

your name yet undiminished

in the grieving heart

72 micro-seasons 53...

Janey...

Unspooling silently across a perfect sky, a skein of wild geese

Jane...

It's not raining but the air is heavy with moisture, rust leaves bright against the grey sky.

Helen...

An October damp softness in the air and nothing hurries.

Beverley...

Half term pumpkin-pickers thread the patch with chatter.

Little ones in new wellies fall over and rise up muddy.

Kit...

Last night's raindrops hang on barbed wire, glass beads catching light in early misty stillness.

72 micro-seasons 52

Janey...

Gutters plashing, furious

streams in spate, high-tide pebbles roiling - 

The sound, always, of water in my life

Beverley...

Four muntjacs hold time before running over the track-braided earth, graze a while, and vanish.

Helen...

The storm leaves great drifts of beech leaves in the corners of a courtyard, bright blue sky above.

Kit...

Ever shorter days ...

we swim in the almost-light hugging the bank, the swollen river running

Jane...

Hints of pink crack through grey scudding clouds. My friends the trees appear, looming.

72 micro-seasons 51

Janey...

After the full moon

gulls hunt insects in the slates

heralding their finds

Beverley...

Countless glistening cobwebs hang on empty seedheads and faded grasses. Morning mist makes ghosts of trees.

Helen...

Acer leaves fall and lie like tiny stars, red, yellow and gold.

Kit...

Up from the barely dressed birch copse, a quiver of forge-fresh crows fly into the greymilk sky

72 micro-seasons 50

Janey...

The  silver-blue stillness of sea and sky...

We watch a juvenile cormorant learning to dive

Kit...

In the walled garden, the last handfuls of runner beans ... and one final small fig, hiding amongst the turning leaves.

Jane...

I break the water's skin and swim to dusk's still-clear light, so thin I could go through it.

Helen...

In warm sunshine I string up onions and pack potatoes into sacks.

72 micro-seasons 49

Janey...

A pale sunbeam lights

purple clouds across the sea 

Storm rain drifting in

Helen...

Dizzied by autumn colours in soft rain. Red, ochre, amber, russet, brown.

Beverley...

Undecided libra season: sometimes wet, windy and grey; sometimes dry, warm and bright. Wardrobe dilemmas.

Jane...

Thick frost on the windscreen in a dark corner, while the rowan at the top of the drive blazes golden light in the morning sun.

Kit...

Kippford in the gloaming ... a babble of curlews dip crescent moon beaks into lowtide mud - overhead a rush of Canada geese head west.

The Golden Hour

Here in Aberystwyth, on the wild west coast of Wales, the golden hour is particularly lovely...in the summer the very late sunset makes for meandering strolls along the prom, late sea-swimming, dogs and dolphins (if we are lucky). In the winter the golden hour is for a brisk walk to watch the starlings in their swoops of murmuration coming home to roost under the pier before darkness descends. And in the liminal times of year, the golden hour is the time to bring in the wind-blown sheets, fill the log-basket, and think about cooking, as the students and workers dally home...

72 micro-seasons 48

Janey...

Silver-grey pigeons bask in the early sun on the slate rooftops

Beverley...

Clusters of sugar pink cyclamens are popping up under hedges, like tiny sherbert sweets.

Kit...

After days of blue and glass the wind whips up and the sea is an angry broil of brown

Jane...

Green branches shift and sift against rose-gold dawn

Helen...

Early Valencia morning: dark chocolate mountains like cardboard against an apricot sky. Later, an eagle gliding.

72 micro-seasons 47

Janey...

Rites wheeling and crying in a storm-blue sky

Kit...

Ardnish, Lochaber, and the deer come down off the ridge by night, leaving their calling cards by the bothy door ...

Beverley...

The delectable smell of wet, turned earth seeps through the hedgerow as the rumble of the tractor and plough make a turn.

Helen...

Early morning sun lights the top of the fells lime green and yellow.

Jane...

The light is clean, clear and thin in the woods after the rain. Everything is wet and still.

72 micro-seasons 46

Janey...

A cold wind blows in from the sea, and leaves autumn in its wake

Jane...

The drizzle is so fine, I don't feel it on my face. Afterwards my clothes are damp.

Helen...

I pick the last blackberries as a thousand geese honk and settle at the water’s edge like holidaymakers.

Kit...

Down on the Solway the sand martins have left, a salty breeze blows through their empty riverbank residencies

Beverley...

A flush of wild chamomile and groundsel has greened up the tracks between the short, shorn stalks of wheat.

72 micro-seasons 45

Janey...

After the harvest moon, a cool breeze gentles the cheek. The drift of feathers...

Helen....

Swallows have packed up and gone but a creaking in the hot blue sky signals the return of the geese.

Jane...

Long shadows cast in the sharp amber light of early morning.

Beverley...

Morning meditation is edging into the pre-dawn now. A full moon is reluctant to set.

Kit...In the cool light of a super moon a barn owl quarters the fields on milk-white wings

72 micro-seasons 44...

Janey...

Feeding among the barley stubble, startled pigeons scatter across the mackerel-sky

Jane...

Sunlight twinkles silver on a haze of grass.

Helen...

Trees and hedgerows darker green now and ragged at the edges. Sharp air.

Beverley...

The rusting creep of autumn in the chestnut trees.

Kit...

In first-frost folds of fell, foxglove leaves are veined with threads of lace

72 micro-seasons 43

Janey...

Blackberries diamond-hung in the silent morning rain

Jane...

A haze of watery golden mist hangs over the river.

Helen...

Pale pink splashes spilling all over the place - ah those Japanese anemones again!

Kit...

Hedgerow thistles gone to seed - Miss Havishams in ruinous ivory raiment

Beverley...

The absence that follows the harvests allows the fen fields to fill with wide open space again.

72 micro-seasons 42

Janey...

Adventuring in the interior...

Ruby-jewelled rowan bushes bedeck the hedgerows

Helen...

I pull onions from their beds - brown papery skins dry in the evening sun.

Beverley...

After the rain the air is steeped in a soft tangy scent: early leaf fall, forgotten apples, wet and shabby roses.

Jane...

Cool clear sun lights clusters of berries on burnished hawthorn.

Kit...

A shaft of solway evening sun falls on withered stems of giant hogweed - turns them into golden statues.

72 micro-seasons 41

Janey...

Tendrils of mist finger their way stealthily over the cliffs

Beverley ...

A bank of vermillion rose hips, scarlet berries on hawthorn, and a profusion of purple sloes.

Helen...

Swallows skittering,

A chill in the morning air,

Fat plums ripening.

Jane...

Early nightfall on a grey day calls to the coming Equinox.

Kit...

Early morning, Coombes Wood, a ghost basket of gossamer thread stretches on pins of gorse

72 micro-seasons 40

Janey...

Last night's unaccustomed storm blew through, leaving devastation in its salt-blackened wake

Kit...

... and here, after a night of heavy rain, a new watering hole for the cattle in the field opposite. A bag of foraged brambles from the hedgerow beyond means first 

black 'n ap crumble of the season beckons.

Jane...

Purple vetch is king in the hedgerow, crowned in golden hogweed.

Helen...

Heather is smudging the hillsides purple - in the valleys crops ripening yellow. Tonight a wild wind blowing from the west.

Beverley...

Acorns flash bright green between dark leaves; sycamore seeds dangle in clusters like ornaments of old gold.

72 micro-seasons 39

Janey

The meadow grasses on the cliff, cut down last night, warm in the morning sun. Lowering clouds...

Jane...

The first few golden leaves of autumn lie beneath the lush green August trees.

Kit...

From lacy white umbels to clasps of tumbleweed, Queen Anne's tiny dazzling ruby gets lost in seasonal translation.

Beverley...

The big chestnuts on the Green are darkening, as well as rusting at their edges; bright baubles are seen.

Helen...

Climbing roses are fading now - thorny stems break free and sway in the wind.

72 micro-seasons 38

Janey...

The late-summer sounds and scents of harvest. Finally the first blackberries 😊

Kit...

Mid august on Elba 

Hydrangeas are over ... flame red bottlebrush takes to the floor ... and we forage the hedgerows for figs.

Beverley...

The wheat stalks batched in oblong bales are strewn like ritual stones around the field.

Helen...

Sharpness in the early morning air and grasses bent down with dew.

72 micro-seasons 37...

Janey...

Already the late-summer scent of salt and seaweed blowing in...

Helen...

White clouds cling to damp fell tops

Like fleece on fence posts -

Down here, bright rowanberries.

Jane...

Clump upon clump of old nettles stand in proud rows along the lane, their dying flowers drooping as they sway in the wind.

Beverley...

Crows ink blot the shorn barley field; the wheat stands ready for its turn. Elderberries in abundance now.

Kit...

My June-sad runner bean teepee has turned a corner. Those rickety jaundiced limbs now leafy, strong & bean-bearing. Hallelujah!

72 micro-seasons 36

Janey...

'Coed Hedd'

Shy tormentil among the reeds and grasses drifting in the feather breeze

Helen...

Himalayan Balsam - I ought to frown and shake my head at you. But your tunnel of candy floss colour shifting in the breeze lifts my heart.

Kit...

Now cleared of windrows, the field has turned 

opal-fruit-green; cows lie about like liquorice chunks, loving their fresh new blanket.

Jane...

Peace hangs in the thick grey clouds, billows through the trees in the summer wind.

Beverley...

From small tangled basket heads, the Queen Anne Lace stitches itself through the high stalks of blond grasses.

72 micro-seasons 35...

Janey...

What can be spoken of this land of soft greens and grey that is transformed overnight into bright blue and gold...

Jane...

Crocosmia, self-proclaimed new queen, reigns over lupins and astrantia.

Beverley...

Waiting for butterflies. Two Small Whites only. But there are birds in the ash trees and bees in the fading lavender.

Helen...

White rose campion lights the dusk. A dark red Salvia broods quietly.

Kit...

Hogweed heads harden to seed, brambles start to bruise, nettle foot-leaves fade to yellow.

72 micro-seasons 34

Janey...

Spiders webs - diamond- strewn hammocks slung between the brambles

Kit...

Common red soldier beetles make love on a bed of downy white sneezewort.

Beverley...

Clusters of elderberries are turning darkest purple. The starlings know.

Jane...

Meadowsweet still reigns lining the lanes with honeyed musky scent.

Helen...

I marvel at the miracle of clean creamy potatoes in dark soil. And oh! The hollyhocks!

73 micro-seasons 33

Janey...

In the hedges and meadows the mauve and blue tones of early summer give way imperceptibly to the yellows - fleabane, ragwort, hawkweed...

Helen...

Fellside like a great green whale, wet under darkening skies - but meadowsweet, frothy in the hedges, lights our way.

Kit...

My secret roadside patch of wild raspberries, which has gifted me sweet, snatched midsummer joy for years, has failed. Sun-starved, the fruit sits damp and greying on withered stems.

Beverley...

It’s a good year for the tall ones: Ox Tongue tossing gold coins all over the place and Great Burdock showing off over-large leaves and an abundance of spiky blooms.

72 micro-seasons 32...

Janey...

Diamond-raindrops sparkle on every leaf and spiderweb, in the unexpected sunshine

Helen...

Pale purple campanula: a misty blue haze in hedgerows which once held peeping primrose.

Beverley...

A Red Admiral flits its way among pink blackberry blossom.

Kit...

Claggy Jack is on the march - verges high with lace-topped hogweed suffocating now in a sticky green mesh.

72 micro-seasons 31

Janey...

Summer sunshine and purple cloud-shadows chase each other across the Sunday afternoon cliffs

Beverley...

Drifts of copper dock and silvery mugwort billow under purple clouds.

Helen...

At the front of the house - Peachy crimson and pink - July colours in the morning sun.

Jane...

Clear blue sky filled out with warmth.

Kit...

In the storm-blown garden rows of lettuces speckled with earth; infant apples, hard as bullets, litter the path.

72 micro-seasons 30

Janey...

Serried ranks of magenta foxgloves hug the cliff-face, the colour mirrored in the campion at their feet

Kit...

Briar Rose discards her love, one pale petal-heart after another ...

Helen...

Profligate grasses have gone to reckless seed. Rhubarb droops and rots. But hollyhocks hang on hard to tight buds on the brink of bursting.

Beverley...

Grey. Wet. All things sag. Only the tall and bright hollyhocks stand in protest.

Jane...

A soft blanket of cloud creates a sauna thick with honeysuckle, elderflower and rose.

72 micro-seasons 29

Janey...

'Mighty Day!' the Irishman remarked long ago, and we used the phrase for a decade, never dreaming of today.

Whitecaps in the breeze, on a sea of jade and indigo.

Beverley...

Warm winds ripple the blonding barley fields and the grasses; all in seed now.

Jane...

A crystal vase of full red roses bowing with the weight of their beauty.

Kit...

Last night a garden dinner tinged in Solway sunset; tonight the fire is lit, the wind is up, the cobbles are damp.

Helen...

Sycamore and oak in the fields- grazed to such neatness and uniformity - almost parkland in the wild.

72 micro-seasons 28...

Janey...

Midsummer dusk is lit by a strawberry moon,  purple foxgloves crowd the cliffs

Beverley...

The campion fades as the vetch flourishes. A single white butterfly.

Kit...

Early Eden solstice - down through the sweet woods, young fir trees draped in honeysuckle, the air bursting with blackbird song.

Helen...

Sky is a hot blue. I clear a weedy ground elder patch and suddenly the house is full of flowers.

Jane...

Green boughs bob and sway ceaselessly in solstice celebration.

72 micro-seasons 27

Janey...

'Peace', in a sheltered spot, is in fully-blown sweetness. Older roses are venturing into bud again after the winds.

Beverley...

Blackberry in blossom. New stems reaching fast for the fence. Small apples taking shape on the tree.

Helen...

Star of Persia purple alliums - their enormous starry heads sheened and preened in morning sun.

Jane...

Everything stretching up to the light, opening out to the warmth.

Kit...

The fell that last held blue has turned hot pink. Farewell bluebells - behold the crowds of foxgloves!

72 micro-seasons 26

Janey...

Heading home

Stopping off for a walk - dog-roses and elderflower in full heady scent

Beverley...

Nettles now in long tight ranks, and common mallow upstarts. Red clover underfoot.

Kit...

An outrage. 

Ants in the house.

Moths too.

First time for both.

Helen...

Bees bore deep into impossibly blue geraniums. An indignant toad is evicted as we level bare earth for a shed.

Jane...

Sweet afterscent of honeysuckle - what might have been

72 micro-seasons 25...

Janey...

The stately oak avenue, two centuries after planting - high above, the patter of rain on the canopy

Helen...

A disruption of malevolent hail, but in between, a shock of pink in the woods as sunlight catches the underside of maple leaves.

Kit...

Driving home westwards in squally rain to a welcome party of flag irises along the shore, a riot of damp yellow hankies

Beverley...

The dog rose is flourishing and grasses in seed are no longer green rather a haze of grey and mauve.

Jane...

Comfrey and green alkanet push the edges of the garden in.

72 micro-seasons 24

Janey

Buttercups flow across the grasses - a river of gold and green

Kit...

These are the last days I can pull - clean from its sheath - a stem of blue-grass, suck on the end like Huckleberry Finn.

Already, in most, sap's risen, stem's become strong.

Helen...

Iris and Herb Bennet’s vivid yellows- peach and scarlet poppies nodding behind.

Beverley...

Field poppies are rampant now caught in rolling waves of tall grasses. From among the tangle of nettles and seed-heads, the hogweed has made its way clear.

Jane...

I pulled the sky-blue linen jacket out of the wardrobe.

72 micro-seasons 23

Janey...

Taraloka dawn

meadows awash with sunlight,

silence in birdsong

Kit...

Sliver of evening sun cracks the pewter sky - 

damp liquorice slug creeps into the spotlight - 

shoals of young leaves - oak sycamore birch - shimmy and sway - 

the fickle wind plays -

Beverley...

The garden borders are exploding with self-seeded Nigella and Toad Flax; roses are falling over themselves along the fences.

Helen...

Unwelcome mare’s tail thrusts its bristly snouts through soil. Primeval strangler squatting on black webs.

Jane...

Grounded after the storms, the rivers too full and fast for swimming.

Taraloka haikus May 2024

25 May

Taraloka dawn

meadows awash with sunlight,

silence in birdsong

26 May

The stillness of rain

woke me in the early hours,

tender the roses

27 May

Taraloka Reflection 

Three-coloured teardrops

floating in the window-pane,

prayer-flags fluttering 

72 micro-seasons 22

22...

Janey...

Komorebi - the play of sunlight through leaves...oh, the dappled- darling light and shade of life.

Kit...

It's just what the dry, dust-caked cobbles wanted - a good dose of straight clean rain. But it needs to stop now ...

Helen...

Verges like lace petticoats - miles and miles of frothing, bobbing cowparsley - green below and beyond.

Beverley...

The joyful twittering of Linnets has joined the choir of songs that rises up from the fields and hedgerows.

Jane...

The thin blue haze of faded bluebells comes earlier these days.

72 micro-seasons 21

Janey...

And, quite suddenly, sunshine, and the sweet scent of old roses

Helen...

Sycamores - blousy in ball gowns - looking every inch the way six- year-olds draw trees.

Beverley...

A spattering of scarlet. Poppies in the margins of the wheat fields.

Kit...

A claret peony carefully unfolds - my Lady Dedlock - plotting to stun society

Jane...

La passagiata - green dresses, white frills - and the peony's slash of lipstick red turns heads.

72 micro-seasons 20

Janey...

Basking in the unexpected warmth, buttercups under the chin

Jane...

Hazy green hills let the dawn fall how it will.

Beverley...

The huge chestnuts are full of leaf and weighted with countless blossoms; along the path white campion is arriving.

Helen...

Young beech leaves spill lime-green light on the road - nearby a hillock is brimming with bluebells.

Kit...

Dandelion clocks shed time as we cycle the banks of the Danube, salbei-blue with wild sage

72 micro-seasons...19

Janey...

High above our heads the copper beech twirls and swirls its verdigris skirts in the breeze

Kit...

In the neat spring green of the Altmuhtal, giant snails cross our damp path, a fleet of small purposeful tugboats.

Beverley...

Hedgerows are full of the froth of hawthorn and the chattering of unseen birds: robins, wrens and greenfinches, blue tits, blackbirds and thrush.

Helen...

Young leaves glint and wink - shining raindrops have gathered - pale light gleaming through.

Jane...

Beech and bluebell: a cathedral of new green and indigo.

72 micro-seasons 18

Janey...

Away from the breeze, hawthorn blossoms in the sheltering hedgerows

Beverley...

The last April sky has let fall all thought of cloud while the elder offers up its first sweet-scented palms.

Jane...

The south wind blew cold last night but change is in the air.

Helen...

Warm winds at last - Green alkanet opens her dozens of dark blue eyes and stares, amazed, at Spring.

Kit...

Early Eden, a gather of pink-hosed greylag natter on shallow rocks - mayfly, hovering low, bring in the new month 

72 micro-seasons 17

Janey...

A lone Welsh poppy, yellow, thin-as-paper petals, braves the April air

Helen...

Gardening. Nesting blackbird hops and skitters, inches close, fixes me with her quick yellow eye.

Beverley...

Lilacs in full colour and scent, each conical bloom a cluster of four-petalled sweetness liberated from the lush green top-notes of Spring.

Kit...

Milky Solway morning -

herring gulls gab 

on shingle spit -

vapour trails 

across the pale high blue

Jane...

The hills are carpeted in copper - the faded rust of last year's broken bracken. All around, a riot of white blackthorn blossom.

72 micro-seasons 16

Janey...

Sunlight on silver-

blue-glass sea,

Shimmering spring

Kit...

where the Helm

hitches herself to the fell -

this year's lapwing chicks

sit tight

on last year's bracken clumps

Jane...

Daffodil leaves hold their tall curve, still proud, as the golden trumpets fade.

Beverley...

Everything shivers. The water in the butts, the swollen hedge of privet, the pigeons paired and preening on the fence edge.

Helen...

Greenness, greedy and everywhere: gold grey lemon turquoise lime mint and all the colours we have not yet named.

72 micro-seasons 15

Janey...

April 

An icy blast reminds the shivering lilac buds

Helen...

Suddenly - hedges

brindled brown and green. Blackthorn

a scatter of white.

Beverley...

Cow Parsley bonnets have pushed their way up fearlessly through new nettles and are bobbing in the wind.

72 micro-seasons 14

Janey

Ferns unfurling in the chancey slant of sunlight, storm-petals clog the drains

Helen

Roads are dark slicks of river under sullen sky.

Beverley 

Three bare patches in the field spring to life: hares cavorting among the wheat shoots.

72 micro-seasons 13

Janey...

Stonechat,

the first of the year,

its voice like white pebbles in my pocket

Beverley...

The never-ending wind blows the skylarks from view but the fields remain awash with their song.

Helen...

Warm winds, infant seedlings. Tips on my acers like hundreds of tiny hands.

72 micro-seasons 12

Janey

Nant yr Arian...

Silence -

only the kite hangs watchful in the silver-blue sky

Helen

Easter sun slanting

through branches still mainly bare -

sharp shadows appear.

Beverley

Not even the daisies over first mown grass will open their faces to this grey day.

72 micro-seasons 11

Janey -

Because the rain

Soft on my eyelids

and because the sun, because

the sun...

Beverley -

It’s not a drop of blood from my thumb rather a jewel bright ladybird on the greening that sways around my feet.

Helen -

Birdsong trailing like ribbons

from robin and thrush

larking about in spring skies.

72 micro-seasons 10

Janey

Tiny emerald buds of hawthorn leaves, today.

And a skylark. Oh, the skylark!

Helen

Sharp blades to snip and tame tree peonies on a warm brick wall. Fuzzy buds are full of the promise of colour.

72 micro-seasons 9

Janey 

pale green leaves of spring emerging

Helen

Rakes and barrows and a morning’s work clearing winter’s fallen twigs in the churchyard.

72 micro-seasons 8

Janey -

Blackthorn braves the still icy breeze

Helen -

A tiny, delicate but broken tulip stem flourishes indoors, brave striped colours emerge.

72 micro-seasons 7

Janey...

On the bank, a too-early bluebell

Liz...

Finally, blue sky

Helen...

faint scent of damp mown grass …

72 micro-seasons 6

Janey

There's snow on the hills

as over-eager blossoms

regret emerging...

Helen

March is mean with streaky skies and a wild, raw sleet.

72 micro-seasons 5

Janey

Hard, bright, wilding skies

rushing, foaming high-tides and

a full-moon rising

Helen

Hellebores and fritillaries astonish with their speckled splendour.

Liz

Warm sun through wet branches glistens on dewy grass

72 micro-seasons 4

Janey: Hyacinths pushing their way through sodden black soil.

Helen: Snowdrops still lighting the way down dusky hedgerows

72 micro-seasons 3

Janey: Quinces in flower, and the first wild cherry blossom

Liz: Rain falls on waterlogged fields.

Helen: Today is the colour of gold - fat pale lemon catkins against the sky. A Goldeneye on the water puffing and preening. Sunlight pushing its way, surprisingly, into the house

72 micro-seasons 2

Warm scents rise from rain-wet ditches

72 micro-seasons 1 4Feb

Janey Thompson: A sullen mist sits on the hills. The sparrowhawk rises...

Liz Allan: Tones of grey

Emma Lavelle: The first snowdrops and daffodil buds emerging 🌱

Helen Hutchinson: This endless wind has work to do, rolls up his sleeves and roars: ‘Let’s get these ditches dry for spring!’ Yes, say the snowdrops in the hedgerows, nodding.