After a week isolating at home, arriving at the Park for the ‘morning rounds’, I felt a little like the Mole (in ‘The Wind in the Willows’)…
“Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.
It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said 'Bother!' and 'O blow!' and also 'Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat.
The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow, and the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side.”
Around the Park, Linnets twitter in hedgerows, the male's breasts touched with rosy red, with Stonechats ticking from among the Gorse, Great Tits reeling out their squeaky two-note song and bursts of the sweet notes of Blackbird, Song Thrush and Skylark. A single Swallow (newly returned from Africa?) swoops in off the sea, swerving and jinking his way up the Gully, while below him, a Roe buck grazes on the short turf, before bounding, loose-limbed into a mass of flowering Blackthorn.
The short downland turf is studded with constellations of electric blue Chalk Milkwort, with Early Spider Orchids starting to display their velvety brown and green flowers. Here and there, splashes of bright pink, from Early Purple Orchid (their leaves spotted with black as if spattered with ink). The blue flowers of Green Alkanet and yellow Lesser Celandine are in bloom around the Car Parks, while Caravan Terrace is awash with Primroses.
The cliffs are bustling with activity, with the soft growls of Guillemots rising up from the sea, smart black and white Razorbills crowded on the high ledges and Fulmars sweeping in elegant arcs around the clifftop.
It’s all enough to make you say “Hang Spring Cleaning!” and go for a walk!