9th April from the West Cliff Green, Bournemouth

Unless you’re a rabbit keeper or a country wine maker, dandelions probably don’t feature much in your thoughts. But yet this brave little flower underpins the majority of our flora. It can flower pretty much all the year round but later in May and June we will see a broad flush on them where the grass is short. Otherwise they push up in any little space at the side of the path or breaking through the tarmac. Their flowers are a gorgeous sunshine yellow with their cushion of rays imitating the sun. That pattern is repeated in its rosette of notched leaves. For me it is one of the important signs of spring. If you pick one its milky juice will stain your fingers brown but, more importantly, will cause you to wet the bed hence its country name pissabed and the French equivalent pis-en-lit. It is actually diuretic so there may be some justice in that rather unromantic name. But it can be used in all sorts of other ways and its root apparently was used in war time to make coffee. Under a blue sky with the strong Easter sun veiled by the mist hanging over the bay, the dandelion is worth looking out for.

From 9th April 2022

In the lengthening spring evening sounds have a particular plaintiveness - distant traffic, voices, the grumbling surf. The spirit of the West Cliff is in these. The air is cold and sweet. A playful little breeze chatters in your ears. The lights just off Old Harry show where the little tanker Witchampton is plying its regular journey between Poole and Fawley. #Bournemouth #WestCliffGreen #Spring #April

From 9th April 2019

The rain is falling steadily from a uniform grey sky. Even with that I feel real joy in the windless spring evening. The tree branches spread the cascade into a fine hissing sound. Rounding the corner I suddenly hear the surf gently massaging the shore. It is the sort of twilight that Thomas Hardy describes at the beginning of "The Return of the Native" . High up on a branch a thrush breaks into its flutey twice repeated song "That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, "lest you think he never could recapture that first fine careless rapture (Robert Browning)

From 9th April 2015

Suddenly a big fog rolls in across the West Cliff from the sea. Tendrils reach along the gardens and in a matter of minutes the temperature drops and the bright sun is obscured.