My journey over to collect Eden this afternoon has confirmed without a doubt that 'summer is a comin' in'. No, I didn't hear a cuckoo but I did hear plenty of blackbirds, hedge sparrows, great tits and wrens on my twenty five mile drive.
It's always fascinated me that I am able to pick out the birdsong as I drive along but it is well known in ornithological circles that the birds have surprisingly loud song in order to compete with us and our traffic noises etc.
The most outstanding part of the journey was the smell of summer. There is one part of the road that has hawthorn trees on both sides for about fifty yards and these are covered in flower. This is commonly known as May (obviously because of the time of the year that it flowers) and it has a particularly pungent perfume which always reminds me that it will soon be summer. Eden isn't quite so impressed with the smell and I suppose it is a strange one to get used to.
A bit farther on there are fields of rapeseed which are in full flower and these really do smell heavenly especially as today has been very warm so the perfume travels more and is very sensuous. The bright flourescent yellow colour of the fields is also a spectatcle.
Finally, as I got a few miles from Eden's home, a farmer had been muck spreading, not a nice smell but at least he's putting that back on the land instead of using chemicals!
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