Cherry pink and apple-blossom white

Actually, I’m sure that lyric is badly written because, around here anyway, the cherry-blossom’s white and the apple-blossom’s pink. Perhaps I should have used “We’ll gather lilacs in the spring again” instead. Whichever, there’s an awful lot of blossom of all types out everywhere now. The winter was long and cold and spring sort of burst into being all of a sudden, rather than the usual gradual build-up. This means that rather than a gradual succession of blooming, with the pears in flower a good fortnight before the apples, everything’s out at the same time. It’s absolutely beautiful, and the scent’s marvellous as you walk around the fields. There’s such a lot of blossom too – the blackthorn (past its best now) made the hedgerows look as though they were covered in snow. The horse chestnut candles are nearly all lit and the lilacs (we’re on limey soil so no rhododendrons anywhere) are magnificent. The bluebells are out in the woods, and the hyacinth smell as you walk through them is just fabulous. It was certainly worth the wait.