Alder and smells

Silly me ... after all these years I didn’t realise that the thing to do on Valentine’s Day was to start hurling insults and abuse so loudly before 9 am on a Sunday so that someone in a house on the opposite side of the road with a bedroom on the other side of the house can hear and be disturbed by it. Sigh.

I headed out for a walk. It was so much milder but still very windy. As I walked through the wood where I often gather wild garlic I was sure I could smell garlic but there was still no sign of it. I wondered if I was willing it to come on or if the fact that I knew it was there was persuading me I could smell it. With the sudden change in temperature there was that sense of change and smell of fecundity and I realised that this is what the birds and animals are so much more aware of and that it is a sense that has become dulled for many of us humans. On my way back down I had a more thorough look and saw the tiniest hints of shoots of garlic ... packing a punch before they’ve barely broken ground. So I wasn’t imagining it then!