Dear Kim....

On Bank Holiday Monday, myself & my lads went for a stroll through one of my favourite haunts, Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. It truly is a special place; a veritable Eden, flanked on all sides by tower blocks & council estates - though once immersed within its ivy draped depths, you really can imagine yourself far removed from inner city London...

To my delight, the bluebells were out in force, mingling with a profusion of other wild flowers; creeping buttercups, chickweed, clover, forget-me-nots, cowslips & cow parsley...

 The three of us were lounging on this bench, enjoying the sunshine, when a fox appeared through the trees; ambled across the clearing before us, utterly unfazed by our presence. And what a beauty it was; this was no mangy-tailed Crack Fox...

No-no-no, this was of the Beatrix Potter variety; bushy tailed & bright copper coated - resplendent against the greenery. Off it sauntered along a trail though the gravestones... 

A walk through the cemetery park never fails to instill a sense of tranquility within me; quelling all anxiety, yet thrilling me with the sights of each passing season. And as I'm currently re-reading Flora Thompson's memoirs of her rural childhood, Lark Rise to Candleford; the following lines, when Flora stops to gaze upon the natural world around her, resonates with me;

                    A wave of pure happiness pervaded her being.... And deeper
                    down, beneath the surface of her being, was the feeling, rather
                    than the knowledge, that her life's deepest joys would be found
                   in such scenes as this.

Ophelia-esque

The pictures interspersed between my own floral offerings are of the beautiful bloggers, the Bright Young Twins, who are dressed exactly as I would have done - if I'd been brave enough - in my late teens/early twenties, when at the peak of my Pre-Raphaelite phase... If I were to dress as such now whilst frolicking around the woods, I'd probably look more akin to a character from this Mighty Boosh ditty, then a Pre-Raph. damsel... 

  

Oh, bluebells, bluebells... If I fail to look upon a patch with each coming May, is always a May wasted...

All these thoughts on nature, and the passing of time, and the purest of pleasures - the joy found in the natural world, brings to mind a scene from my favourite film...

Lots more nature inspired posts to come with the (fingers-crossed) clement months...!