Millefleur

With a couple of days of on/off rain the countryside has woken up. The trees have a fuzz of new growth and lots of blossom is starting to appear. In a few weeks the orchards will be full of bloosom, one of the sights of Herefordshire, and I am looking forward to this.

I remember hearing of 'millefleur', a patterning of flowers on a field background in late medieval and Renaissance tapestries - the idea was the ground was like a carpet of flowers, literally 'a thousand flowers'. Then one day in the car park of a small French town I saw it; the grass around the car park hadn't been cut for a few weeks and the flowers had taken over. For the first time as a natural phenomenon millefleur made sense. I was reminded of it today, as the fields and roadsides here are awash with dandelions, daisies, honesty, primulas; the field next to the river in Pembridge is a sea of yellow dandelions on the green background, looking exactly like a carpet. A beautiful sight.

The western light is filling the kitchen and shining right through to the living room wall. Last night we sat outside in the very last of the light and lit candles, watching bats and hearing the owls in the woods above the house. As the days lengthen and the evenings are lighter, we use the living room less and tend to sit outside if at all possible, part of the seasonal migration throughout a house.