• Home
  • Events
  • Donate
    • Friends of Topsmead General Fund
    • Memorial Tree Fund
  • Projects/Volunteer
  • History
    • Remembering Topsmead
  • Membership
  • Contact
  • Musings
  • Visitor Info
    • Topsmead State Forest Map
  • FAQ
  • Chase Family Holiday Cards
FRIENDS OF TOPSMEAD STATE FOREST
  • Home
  • Events
  • Donate
    • Friends of Topsmead General Fund
    • Memorial Tree Fund
  • Projects/Volunteer
  • History
    • Remembering Topsmead
  • Membership
  • Contact
  • Musings
  • Visitor Info
    • Topsmead State Forest Map
  • FAQ
  • Chase Family Holiday Cards
Picture
by Margaret Hunt

Oh! The Bloomin’ Uncertainty!      April 2022

4/27/2022

0 Comments

 
​I have been waiting to muse about Topsmead in April in order to give Ms. April a chance to get her weather act together and give up alternating between tantalizingly warm weather and bracingly raw and wet weather.  Silly me.
 
Finally, realizing that the month of April was slipping away, my poodle and I marched up to Topsmead to see what brave flora, if any, was peeking out of the still cold ground.  We found that the blues were beginning.  Here and there in the south garden were one or two bluebells.  Surprisingly, it was on the north side of the dovecoat that we had more luck; a multi-flowered rug of bluebells was rolling itself out under the protection of the lilac trees.  Pleased, I snapped some photos with my iphone before hustling back to the car.
 
It seems that the uncertainty of April’s weather has been matching the uncertainty of the world outside of Topsmead.  Perhaps the Topsmead gardens are smart to exercise caution as they pick their time to bloom.  As Eliza Doolittle from the musical My Fair Lady might have said in her cockney accent:  Oh! The bloomin’ uncertainty of it all!
 
With barely a week left in April and encouraged by the somewhat balmier weather and the sounds of the peepers at night, my poodle and I returned to Topsmead to check the status of the gardens and give Ms. April a second chance.  After all, April showers are supposed to be preparing for May flowers.  
 
We were rewarded for our efforts. The previous few days of sun had coaxed the perennials in the north and south cottage gardens into making an appearance, sprouting in well-planned clumps and creating a mosaic of different shades of green.  The tiniest buds were forming on the lilacs and the apple trees.  The blues of the bluebells had been joined by the almost-purples of the periwinkles along the front of the cottage.  And the yellows had come out:  daffodils and forsythia.  Much cheerier!  
 
Every visit to Topsmead teaches me something.  This visit reminded me that there will always be periods of uncertainty, but persistence and time and good cheer have the power to transform the discomfortingly raw weather of uncertainty into the bloomin’ sunshine of certainty. 
 
Margaret Hunt
BlogMistress
0 Comments

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019

    RSS Feed

  • Home
  • Events
  • Donate
    • Friends of Topsmead General Fund
    • Memorial Tree Fund
  • Projects/Volunteer
  • History
    • Remembering Topsmead
  • Membership
  • Contact
  • Musings
  • Visitor Info
    • Topsmead State Forest Map
  • FAQ
  • Chase Family Holiday Cards