Flora and Fells

February, the month when by imperceptible degrees the days start to lengthen and someone, well yes I mean me, is taken by surprise by the time, 5 O'Clock and still light, yay.

The snowdrops are in full flower and the daffodils are long green shoots and just waiting for their moment in the sun.  Now is the time I like to look forward to the year ahead and wonder what new things I will see, what the year's weather will be like and

Small White (Pieris rapae) on buttercups

dream of the warmer days to come when fluttering wings will be in fields and hedgerows landing on flowers and the

ferns will be unfurling. The latter perhaps I'm fonder of in photogenic clumps rather than in whole impenetrable swaths of fell-sides as they can make finding a pathway through rather testing at times.  All this is in the future and at the moment there are chilly winds 

Coniston Old Man

but the only snow we have had this year floated down onto the fells so we had the pretty views without the icy roads.

Swans on Coniston Water

In the first week of February the day that was so still that Coniston Water had not a ripple on it, only the ones made by these swans.  This is also the very last photo taken by my camera for like a boxer with a glass jaw it has taken many knocks and bruises to its body and shrugged them off but did not survive its careless owner putting it in her coat pocket with a bunch of keys and damaging the screen. The finish for this trusty little Panasonic.  (The photograph of the snowdrops at the beginning of the post is the first I've taken with my new camera, it will probably take me the rest of the year to get to grips with it, thank goodness there is always auto).   

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at F here

Life and Death

A profusion of crocus covers St Andrew's churchyard in Coniston at the moment. It is a churchyard with many interesting and ornate gravestones, mostly on the other side of the church to this view, but the star of the show at the moment are the flowers.  No wonder John Ruskin opted for this peaceful place in the shadow of Lakeland hills to Westminster Abbey as his final resting place. 

Crosses and Crocus

"Of all the pulpits from which the human voice is ever set forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave" The Seven Lamps of Architecture by John Ruskin (1849)

The cross of John Ruskin in St Andrew's churchyard, Coniston. It is a beautiful object carved by H T Miles on green slate from the local quarry at Tilberthwaite, and designed by W G Collingwood, an expert on Anglo Saxon crosses. It depicts some aspects of Ruskin's work and it captures the essence of his artistic philosophy.  The afternoon light was shining on this side which highlighted the carving so a photograph was irresistible.  I will have to go back next time in the morning to capture the light shining on the front.

"There is no wealth but life"

Could not resist another Ruskin quote. The churchyard was full of  snowdrops and crocus basking in this marvellous spell of sunny weather.