Summer beckons

2^nd June 2013

A Thrush sang a sweet reveille to wake me and I rose with the Sun. The half Moon in the blue sky was a promise of the morning to come. Dee and I drove to Ightham Mote, one of our favourite walks to Sevenoaks along the Ridge.                                                                                           The lane to Rooks Hill was thick with Vetch and Germander Speedwell. Ransoms under the trees were flat now and the flowers gone to seed, but still there was the strong garlic odour. Yellow Archangel beautified the damp banks. In the wood, a hall of trees with a leafy roof was a church with birdsong echoing through the space.

Cool, with a carpet of Bluebells now gone to seed; their once proud heads laden with pods; their leaves flat, pale and lifeless. Summer beckons: a bridge between Spring and Autumn.                                                      The climb to the ridge is hard going but the views are so green and expansive. We went into Knole for breakfast, sitting against an ancient pollarded Sweet Chestnut, on the south side, away from the wind. Around the park perimeter we heard the Parakeets but could not see them, as much as we tried, so green they are! The deer were sunning themselves or grazing lazily, unconcerned about our presence. Rhododendrons in full bloom and are great blowsy things!

In a field before Lower Bitchet there were, possibly, the breast feathers of a Cuckoo. A meal for Reynard and his cubs in any case. The green lane from Bitchet Green was bordered with Queen Anne's Lace, thick and luscious and creamy with the bitter-sweet perfume remembered so well. There was a small defiant colony of Ransoms; still in flower and fresh. I picked some young leaves for my gravy later! The break for coffee on the top of the Greensand Ridge was at the bench which looks out over the valley like a theatre. You can see the whole World from there.                                                                                                                                                                  We were greeted by a bouncing gang of Labradors of different colours which pinched Dee's biscuits! The owner apologised, but too late! They were gone.                                                                                                                                           Scullcap and Red Campion were visited by an Orange Tip butterfly to take nectar at Willmot Hill and we crossed the path to go down to Budds and through the wood. St. Giles' Church at Shipbourne nestling in the trees on the hill was picturesque in the extreme with Sky larks all about us. Horse Chestnut candles of every hue pointing skyward, like on a Christmas tree. Later, toward the Mote, a Sky lark was singing madly, gliding above a fallow field stained yellow with Buttercups, then dropped suddenly and plopped onto its nest and was silent.                         Back at the Mote, the feeling was of pleasure but sadness that the time was over.