Fairy lamps and fresh spring leaves

From the beginning of April 1906, Edith noted the rapid advance of spring in her Diary. During my visit to Birmingham (5 to 7 April, 2016), I found several of the same signs of spring near the Arden hotel and NEC. She described what I know as pussy willow.

The "fairy lamps" of pussy willow.

"I went to a little spinney to see a large bush of Great Round-Leaved Willow, which is a perfect picture, just now, covered all over with great golden catkins that light up the copse like so hundreds of fairy lamps. The bees were humming all round it, busy gathering the pollen."

I was out too late in the day to see bees on the willow flowers but I did spot a couple of big buff-tailed bumble bee queens near the ground, perhaps returning to their nests.  In her entry for the 4th, Edith noted: "The sun has brought out the green leaf-buds on the trees and hedges very rapidly".  

Similarly in 2016, leaves are appearing on road and rail-side trees. In just a few minutes I found green leaves on field maple, sycamore, hawthorn, horse chestnut, elder, weeping willow and many others.

Young horse-chestnut leaves.

In her entry for the 9th, Edith described her journey to Stoke Bishop, on her way to Dartmoor and noted that "The low-lying fertile lands ... were golden with Marsh Marigolds".  I found a small clump of Marsh Marigolds at the edge of the Trinity Park pond.

A small clump of yellow marsh marigolds at the edge of the Trinity Park pond.

Early one morning, from an upstairs office window, a pair of Canada geese dipping together on the pond. They mated, spent a little time on a tiny island and then flew in a great arc round the pond, under my office window, then off in the direction of the NEC.

Canada geese at the Trinity Park pond.

I hope Edith's journey went more smoothly than mine to Birmingham. On Tuesday, overhead power lines had come down just North of Birmingham International. Having finally managed to board a train at London, everyone had to get off at Coventry. A colleague, who travelled earlier, spoke of considerable chaos but by the time I got there things had settled down. Coaches were taking passengers to Birmingham New Street and the few of us headed for Birmingham International were bundled into taxis.

Attending to the overhead wires.

While I was exploring that evening I saw trains moving through again and a group of men in high-vis clothes checking the overheads. In Edith's time, this sort of problem could not have occurred as there were few electric lines - just some in the South East, including the London Underground and the tiny Volks Electric Railway that still runs along Brighton sea front, not far from where I live.