Crocuses are an annual marker, coming out at the same time each year. This being the case they work as a marker of Joe’s birthday, which is on Tuesday. Each year I remember 2003, which had a very warm first few days of March, spent mostly in Calderdale Royal Hospital while we waited (and Clare pushed, for days) for him to make his appearance. Crocuses were coming up everywhere then, and here are more, 22 years later.
As reliable an early signifier of spring as anything else — and the crocuses are early this year. Nor has their February arrival diminished them in number, certainly not on this lawn in front of Lancaster Castle, anyway.
Enough of this winter, say I! I don’t see this as a winter shot. This is the first picture of spring. If we all exert our will on the weather surely we can psychically change it. Worth a try surely.
I’m leaving the UK tomorrow, I guess it is possible there could be a shot from Manchester airport (although I’m sat there as I type this, and nothing is inspiring me thus far), but more likely is that tomorrow will see the first non-UK shot since the one in Sheremetyevo airport on 25th October (day 2,253), a run of 129 days and the second-longest such run since I started on this blog. Let’s travel, though I’m not heading anywhere warmer…
Sometimes these photos are planned. When Joe (birthday yesterday) was born the ground was strewn with crocuses (croci?) like these and my mum-in-law predicted the flowers would become a symbol of this event in our lives. She was right. I passed these growing plants in the Sackville Street gardens in Manchester yesterday (home of the Alan Turing statue) but there was no time to get a shot. Repeating the walk to work today though I spent a few minutes there to see what I could do to mark this sign of spring.
Being 42 