SPRING IS BURSTING FORTH!

It was a cold, grey and very windy morning, and we both remarked how fortunate it was that the wedding was last Saturday and not today!  However, we wrapped up well, with thick coats, hats and gloves (I could do with a pair of fingerless gloves though!) when Mr. HCB and I decided it would be a good idea to go for a walk - not a long one, but we needed to buy a Saturday newspaper, so we set off towards the garage just a little way from home.  

We stopped a lot on the way, because we are fortunate to live in an area where there are many trees.  I took photographs whilst Mr. HCB waited patiently and looked at the burgeoning undergrowth, which was now covered with greenery, most of which is a sticky weed that creeps along the ground and grows to a height of about twelve inches - and although we hate it in our garden, it did look good under the trees.

Most of the trees are showing bursting buds and the change from dormant twigs and branches on wind-bent and contorted trees into an explosion of differently coloured green leaves were a pleasure to behold.  Several people walked past, but we appeared to be the only ones stopping to marvel at the beauty all around us.

Mission completed and walking back home, I told Mr. HCB that I wanted to go and look and just wander around the horse chestnut or conker trees, as they are known, which we can see from our bedroom windows.  He opted to go back home and put a kettle on, ready to have our morning coffee.

This is the result but I took many more photographs and enjoyed just wandering round - in fact, I hardly noticed the noise of the traffic from the busy road nearby.  There were literally hundreds of smaller horse chestnut trees, all about a foot tall, poking through the now-soaked soil, but I’m not sure how  many of them will survive because the large tree will take most of the nutrients from the earth.  

I love the way the leaves are unfurling to show the “candles” of the horse chestnut tree - those beautiful flower spikes, barely formed now but which will, before long, become tall and upright to grace this tree and make it stand out.  You can hardly see the sticky outer casing of the bud in this shot, so I have put another one in as an extra to show this - and the leaves really were this beautiful, vibrant green.

I guess many in cars coming round and seeing an older more mature lady taking photographs wondered if I had lost my mind - but actually, it was wonderful to be communing with nature - and they were the losers, not me!

“Nature is so powerful, so strong. 
     Capturing its essence is not easy - 
          your work becomes a dance 
               with light and the weather. 
It takes you to a place 
     within yourself.”
Annie Leibovitz

P.S.  I took these shots with my Swedish Blip friend, Heanku in mind and hope she likes it.