Rain and snow

It has rained every day this year. It has been a nightmare trying to schedule rehearsals for the outdoor performance and because we need to keep the costumes and props dry, we have struggled with getting enough runs in. I have turned into a crazy woman who walks along muttering to herself and occasionally shaking her fist and shouting at the sky.

Meanwhile the snow continues to cause havoc in England. But it is just so beautiful in the Lake District. I still want to be snowed in (in a centrally heated, doubled glazed house, of course). I imagine an open fire, a contented cat, a good book, a full-bodied red and a red-blooded lover. And forays out into the world to chat with neighbours and compare conditions. In scenery like this I would indeed be walking in a winter wonderland.

Check out more of these gorgeous photos at Tony Richards' website.

Oh, to be in England!

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower, -
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

I was never really a fan of Robert Browning in my youth. I thought him weary and trite and too fond of the Romantic poets for his own good. Now, as I approach my own 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness', I find I'm starting to rather like him. Is this a natural consequence of ageing, I wonder?

Also, I know that he was from down south and so probably writing about the Home Counties' countryside, but I can't help connecting his words with the Lake District. I get my fix of this beautiful place through Tony Richards' Lakeland Cam website. Every day the erstwhile postman takes photos of the region on his daily walks and posts them to his site.

I love to look and them and sigh, and although they fill me with homesickness, I wouldn't miss them for the world. Because my parents have a house there, the pictures often show their road; their village; their pub; even their house.

I've walked and run over those hills; I've eaten in those tea-shops and I've drunk (and been drunk) in those pubs. Looking at these pictures every day is the most exquisite form of nostalgia.

I love the lambs and the flowers and the trees and the grass and the little grey villages surrounded by hills. And at this time of year, when we in the southern hemisphere are cold and wet and windy, everything looks so green. It's very hard to take spring pictures (as I've discovered) - cameras don't seem to be able to cope well with the dappled light effect through the whispering leaves. Tony Richards manages to capture it effortlessly.

Green is my favourite colour and it bursts out of these pictures with a glad welcome. Oh, to be in England indeed...