This is my favourite time of year in Christchurch..well right now it is my favourite time of year though I may well change my mind in the lazy summer, or when the leaves are faded velvet or when the mountains are first covered in snow next winter. It is my favourite time because though it is not officially Spring, the air is soft and smells of damp earth and new leaves and just opening buds.
It is the perfect time to park the car in Cranford Square and be amazed again at an inner city park so open and green, encircled by old trees and empty benches and no other person in sight apart from the occasional cyclist just passing through. I promise myself that I will soon come here again and sit on the grass with my thermos of coffee and serious book but that must wait till the soil is warmer and the trees are weighed down with summer leaves.
On this first day of spring (though not officially The First Day of Spring) the air is soft and earthy and even humans can feel the change that has pushed the crocuses through the bare earth and opened the magnolia buds closest to the sun. Pale sunseekers stretch across the new grass between the sharp shadows of naked trees.
Soon there will be noisy children discarding ice-cream wrappers and tourists with clumsy feet crowding the rose garden with cameras and water bottles expecting more and ready to move on but not yet. Soon there will be hordes of families and dogs pissing on the daffodils, letting their toddlers maul and trample but it is early for that yet. The rose garden is silent and bare so I respect its privacy and follow the river past the oblilgatory ducks and canoes, pausing to admire the blossom tree on the far bank. This postard perfect Christchurch we sell to tourists so I keep walking and look instead for little treasures in the undergrowth, azaleas and irises.
(Only a little more today, I know but…better than nothing! I still want to learn how I can link this to the matchingphotos on flickr)
