… The sheepfold here Pours out its fleecy tenants o’er the glebe. At first, progressive as a stream they seek The middle field: but, scatter’d by degrees, Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land.
(from William Cowper’s The Task
When Cowper wrote this in the 18th Century he was living in Bedfordshire, almost as flat as the Sussex salt marshes, where the picture was taken. And he would have seen the occasional stage coach pass by, not hourly trains, as seen in the background here.
A delightful word picture, an illumination like those little sketches in mediaeval manuscripts.
This morning after weeding Mrs A’s garden I carried home a bag of moss and potential cuttings forked out of one of the flower beds. I was enjoying an after lunch coffee, alone in the house, when within ten minutes firstly our younger grandson brought his mother round to see how the painting of his toy locomotive was going; Mrs T came in from one of her little, but vital, jobs; then a woman friend with learning disabilities arrived. Grandson was soon playing with her; 90 minutes of enjoyment on all sides but exhausting.
Mrs T made another cup of tea at this point. 30 minutes of restful enjoyment.
The evening was drawing in by now, so out I went to do the minimum for the cuttings. Robins and blackbirds were singing – the fourth year our cock blackbird with white spots has been with us. The rooks and gulls flew overhead to their respective roosts, by no means quietly. Time for me to stop before the light failed.
A last peer into the pond – no frog spawn yet – and indoors to the warmth of home.
Come and visit the eighteenth century in the company of Doctor Johnson and James Boswell.
In The Idler, No. II, Johnson shews that ‘an Englishman’s notice of the weather is the natural consequence of changeable skies and uncertain seasons… In our island every man goes to sleep unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as at an escape from something that we feared; and mutually complain of bad, as of the loss of something that we hoped.’
Boswell for once is quoting from Johnson’s written words rather than conversation. I found this text on the same day in winter that I took the photograph. My father called the piercing of clouds by sunbeams such as we see here ‘The Gate of Heaven’. A saying worth recording, as Boswell would no doubt have agreed.
I am reminded of the line of Chesterton: ‘The gates of heaven are lightly locked.’ But do we look up to see them? Dare we set a toe over the threshold, pausing even for a moment, to catch a glimpse of glory? What does the voice from the cloud tell us? I found myself hurrying the next moment, as my grandson’s school bell had rung and he would soon be out and scanning the playground for his adults. But the moment stayed with me.
From “Life of Johnson, Volume 4 1780-1784” by James Boswell
The other day when I walked into the greenhouse it was the first time this year that it felt appreciably warmer than outdoors. A spring moment even in February and worthy of a mention in the blog.
When I was looking for a picture to mark the moment I came across this snap from exactly a year before. The snow was such a blessing to all who like snowmen and sledges. There was not enough for cross country skiing, and the sledgers were spattered with as much mud as snow. But that was a moment of pure joy for many people. Deo Gratias!
Walking through Saint Stephen’s park today I saw the first black-headed gull in Spring plumage, ready for Valentine’s, the birds’ wedding day. It was less obliging in posing for the camera than this one, but almost as smart.
Smart, too, was the white wood pigeon that both Mrs Turnstone and I saw at different times in different parks (so perhaps there are two of them about). The one I saw was not albino but had a dark bar across its tail in flight. Mrs T’s had flecks of colour on its breast. Over the last maybe ten years, there has often been a white wood pigeon around Canterbury.
Will Turnstone 