The view from the other side

Early this afternoon I took the roundabout route skirting the edge of the village to reach the bottom of the valley below our house. I then climbed partway up the opposite hillside which I often photograph from home. I didn't have time to continue to the top, but I paused in the field where the horses live to look back across the valley to our neighbours' houses and the trees which conceal ours. The houses all along the road are on the opposite side to our bungalow, which is almost invisible among the area of trees just left of the centre of the photo. The orange of our willow thicket is clearly visible, as is the huge, old poplar at the bottom corner of the orchard; this, like the hedgerow hawthorns and elders, is dark green with ivy. To either side are the fields where later in the year there will be sheep and lambs, but for now the sheep are in the lower field. The swings belong to our neighbours who live just out of frame beyond the left hand field and own the field below our orchard. Up the left hand edge of the photo, the houses on the hillside mark the route of the lane up the hill, up which I often walk to reach the hilltop or the woods.

As well as drifts of snowdrops, there is a bank of primroses and the daffodils on the roadside verge are a little closer to opening every time I look. There are crocuses in the gardens and dandelions in the verges, and the first delicate pink blossoms are already opening. I don't think I've ever seen spring so advanced in mid-February.