Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Blue skies and blossoms

With my bike out of action, I have taken to drastic measures such as going for a morning walk with Son 1's beloved Cocker Spaniel, Raja... This is no hardship, as the morning skies are blue and the blossom is everywhere: on the Coulée Verte (our local wildlife trail)....
in the garden... and on the streets.
Here are a selection of beautiful scenes from the last few days.
Down in a dark and damp part of the Coulée Verte, lichen surrounds the blossoms.
On the streets, in full sunshine, everything is completely out. Even against the fencing of the rugby 'stade' the blossom struggles through the Leylandii hedge.
White, pink and yellow are the dominant colours.
Although blue can creep in, as at the foot of our garden magnolia.
Little blue stars amongst the stellar explosion of pink and white...
Someone else has a much bigger magnolia than us!
Having put crystalised mimosa seeds on my cupcakes this weekend, I was interested to study the real plant. It really is made up of little yellow balls!
There are relatively few leaves out. In southern France, many oaks keep their old leaves until the new green ones come. It's a sight we've got used to, but it surprised us at first.
Just more beautiful blossom - it's everywhere!
Like a Japanese painting...

Enjoy your day - sunny or not!

5 comments:

Ashley said...

I am so jealous it still looks like winter over here in the U.S. meanwhile my parents in northern Ireland) have been telling me about spring blooming and now I can see it.

Hollypop's said...

It's amazing what being a couple of hours south can do, your blossom is a bit ahead of ours. The forsythia in our garden is only just coming into bud. It's beautiful here today though 22 on the car thermometer this morning when I took Holly to music. Do your children go to school on Wednesdays?
Take care.
Nickyx

Ali @ Betty and Violet said...

Oh ~ the magnolia! We used to have one at our old house and I miss it! Gorgeous springtime photos!

There is an award waiting for you on my blog...

Shabby Chick said...

Those pictures are stunning, the one of the magnolia looks amazing :)

Mel xxx

JuanitaTortilla said...

Wow, it seems that Spring is making its way much, much faster to your town than mine!
We're now caught in freezing mornings, icy cold winds, and some sporadic snow showers :(