The cherry blossom in the courtyard at work had been and gone six weeks ago, but the more exposed trees outside the White Lion in Hebden Bridge require more lead-in time to reach full flower. Still, here they are — in time to make the place look good for the Easter daytrippers.
Somewhat continuing a theme from yesterday, but hey. Definitively, the first blossom I’ve seen of the year turns up in the courtyard of the Ellen Wilkinson Building, as it has done before (it’s a finely sheltered spot).
There may be a few people, other than me, working in the Ellen Wilkinson Building at this time. There are occasional noises, dimly perceived, as if made by spirits. Shadowy presences in stairwells. But seeing as even in normal times I was usually the only one who ventured out into the hidden courtyard, the annual cherry blossom display is even more personal than usual, this year. We both greeted a warm, early spring day — alone.
It is three years and a bit, or more precisely, 1,112 days, since I went to Japan and commented on that nation’s obsessive interest in cherry blossom, which they call sakura. It is certainly a sign of full spring, and so ephemeral that I wonder if the Japanese are getting their spiritual money’s worth from the sakura in this rather odd springtime. I will at least report that Hebden’s own cherry/cheery trees are in full blossom right now.
The blossom came out in force over the hot Easter weekend…. and a good chunk of it came down again during the last couple of less clement days. This ephemerality is why people like the Japanese get all sentimental about it, I guess.
Last day in Manchester, certainly, for 33 days. Off tomorrow, on my most significant journey of 2019. So time for this year’s ‘cherry blossom in the Ellen Wilkinson Building’s secret courtyard’, then. I doubt it’ll still be there when I get back.
They’re very pink, but very ephemeral, the cherry blossoms. Maybe that’s why the Japanese like them so much, it matches their general aesthetic.
Back to cold, rainy weather. But if I keep posting pictures of spring perhaps when I look back I will remember this as a warm April morning. The blossom is out in ‘my’ courtyard at work, at least, but back in 2014 (for example) it looked like this in February. A sign of the lateness of the weather patterns this year.
Is he engaging in some Japanese-style blossom worship? (You see Japan — we have blossom too….) Or just clambering along a precarious wall, as small boys do to entertain themselves and worry their parents?
Last full day in Japan. A couple of free hours this morning were spent in Shinjuku-gyoen park, along with several thousand other people, most of whom seemed to be cooing over the blossoming cherry trees (sakura), with dozens of Japanese engaging in what I could only perceive as a form of fundamental nature worship beneath each one. A total stranger asked me in the hotel elevator this evening whether I had seen the blossoms. They even have national news announcements, blossom forecasts if you like, stating where the best displays are to be found. I don’t dispute these plants’ beauty, but I can’t help thinking — you know, we have cherry blossoms in England too. They’re just there. But clearly I’m missing something.
Being 42 