L is for...........................

Laburnum

Of all the trees, my favourite is the good old English Oak but a very close second is the Laburnum.  Acid yellow flowers brings sunshine to the dullest day in spring.  The flowers on the trees only last a very short while, but they are so bright.  I have been lucky to live in two houses with a Laburnum tree.  This house that we have lived in for twenty four years, and one when I was very little that my grandparents owned in Chingford London.  

A member of the pea family this tree is poisonous.  A few years back the tree didn't look well, but whatever it was the ladybirds (ladybugs) loved it.  Every time we walked passed the trees ladybirds just fell out to the ground and staggering along drunk!  And often when all around is quiet the tree hums to the tune of bees gathering the nectar.  

The Laburnum Fairy

Bees! Bees! come to the trees

Where the Lime has hung her treasures;

Come, come, hover and hum;

Come and enjoy your pleasures!

The feast is ready, the guests are hidden;

Like pearls shine the drops of sweetness there,

And the scent of the Lime-flowers fills the air,

But soon the blossoms pretty and pale

Will all be gone; and the leaf-like sail

Will bear the little round fruits away;

So bees! bees! come while you may!

                                                                  Cicely Mary Baker

Linking with Alphabet blogging 

A host, of golden daffodils

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

An twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched the never-ending line

Along the margin of the bay.

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves besides them danced; but they

Out-did the sparling waves in glee:

A poet could not be gay,

I such a jocund company:

I gazed - and gazed - but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills.

And dances with daffodils.

William Wordsworth - 1804

Also take a look here

South Molton and We have time to stand and stare..........

On Saturday Alex and I went to the Vintage Fair at South Molton.  My friend Jane emailed me to ask if I had read the article in the local paper and was I going as it was just up my street.  I hadn't read the paper by the time I read the email, so on a quick investigation.  We said we would have a day out.....yes remember those words 'a day out'.  I looked to see if there was a website for South Molton, there was and even a little video too.  We had never been there even though it was only an hour away!

Saturday morning lovely and sunny, just right for a drive across the Exmoor.   We arrived and parked the car, we could have stayed in the carpark till 10.10am Monday morning if we wished for only £1.10.  We went to the Fair first because that is why we went, chatted with Liz and Donna.  Then we walked round the town, found somewhere to eat and then went back to the market.  We didn't think anything about them packing away about 1.30ish after all it was Saturday and some markets are only on in the morning.  Anyway I bought plant for the garden and then we went back to the museum only to see the curator shutting the doors.  I questioned this, and the reply was Oh we are very civilised here we close Wednesday and Saturday afternoons.  Nowhere on the South Molton website says this!! 

Liz - Washerwoman stall

Donna - Fabric of My Life

On the way home on a nice sunny Saturday afternoon and especially when we stopped at the traffic lights, have you ever looked around you?  There was a few moments just to stop and stare...........

Top both pictures the traffic lights at Dunster, Somerset
bottom a wall at Barnstable and a traffic island

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare. 

William Henry Davies

Armistice

at the Eleventh Hour,

on the Eleventh Day, of the Eleventh Month

We will remember them

The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England.

There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

By Rupert Brook 1887 - 1915

last sonnet written 1914

Tiger Tiger........

TIGER TIGER
written by William Blake

Tiger tiger burning bright,

In the jungles of the night.

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry.

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wing dare he spire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

On what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart

And when thy heart began to beat?

What Dread hand? And what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp?

Done its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears

Tiger tiger burning bright,

In the jungles of the night.

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry.