24th May from the West Cliff Green, Bournemouth

An orderly procession of little waves queue up before nodding over to kneel at the waters edge. It is one of those days where spring seems to be slipping into summer. It is warm with very little breeze and the heat beats up from the green foliage. Yet we have only just tipped over into spring and everything is growing madly to make up for lost time. For the last fortnight it has been as though time has speeded up and delicate spring flowers are overlapping with the gaudier summer flora. Small migrant birds appear and disappear in a twinkling. It is a mighty effusion of nature. The shadows are cool and inviting and pigeons coo from the tree tops.

From 24th May 2022

A fresh, quiet morning. A little breeze sets the green fingers of the trees and bushes shivering. The sky is bumpy and grey but with fissures and cracks of blue so we get little freckles of rain followed by a few moments of warm sunshine. The sea is almost flat calm and nuzzles up to the smooth, almost empty beach. Magpies chatter at each other from the branches of a pine. A carpenter's hammer clack clack clacks on some important piece of timber. The pigeons are too busy gorging themselves on the cornucopia of grass seed too bother with cooing. #westcliffgreen #bournemouth #summer #May 

From 24th May 2013

This spring's flower has to be sheeps sorrel. This is a small unassuming plant related to the dock. The flowers are tiny and formed into reddish spikes. But this year it's making beautiful little pink clumps around the bases of the Corsican pines on the West cliff showing that every insignificant thing can be beautiful when working together.