Saturday 15 April 2023
I’m mildly impressed with myself that this is the 100th post since we moved to Scottish Borders. It’s the middle of April and outside is zero degrees, frosty and sunny. Last weekend was Easter, our friend Duncan arrived a week ago and we came home yesterday afternoon from two nights in Edinburgh. I have a confused sense of day of the week, and even the month. I had a split-second-flash of dating this February rather than April.
I love amaryllis flowers and have often grown the bulbs over December/January in the (warm) flat in London. By early February, they’re usually over. I bought two bulbs in early January, a half-price impulse-buy. They started growing very slowly and I thought they might not get much further than green stumpy leaves. They were in different (cold) parts of the house. The one under the skylight on the half-landing has already flowered and I put it away (ie I’ll try to keep the bulb until December in the hope it grows again). The second one seemed to be growing too slowly to ever flower, so I moved it to the kitchen window a month ago and one of the two stems is now in full bloom. The more pink of the two photos is the more accurate, the sun seemed to make it look kind of salmon-coloured.
Once, with envy, I saw a beautiful dark red amaryllis growing in someone’s window in late February in an old house in Hastings. I realised that, as mine that year had been and gone (hot flat), their house must be cold. Well, I think our house in Scotland must be even colder than their house for the amaryllis to only just be in full bloom in mid-April. This is one of a limited number of positives to having a cold house – I write that as I lay on the sofa, fully clothed, sheepskin boots on and Oodie and tea keeping me warm.
Duncan and I walked roughly 30,000 steps on two days in Edinburgh (ie 60,000 steps), which I realise is possibly what I do in a wet, windy week at home in Scottish Borders. My legs and feet were knackered but I loved exploring new areas and getting Duncan’s perspective of the Edinburgh of his childhood. I realised I was taking photos of flowers, which eventually made me realise how far behind Scotland is compared to London and the southeast and our area of Scottish Borders compared to Edinburgh. We got home yesterday and not even half the daffodils in a long row of them in the neighbour’s garden were out.
I have never been so conscious of the huge disparity in seasons across the UK. It’s obvious, the weather is different, the environment and nature are different; it’s just kind of nice to be experiencing it and realising it for myself. This early part of spring is more about lambs and calves and foals and frogspawn, of which, particularly the former and the latter, I have seen many. Spring is only slowly becoming about the flowers and trees and sunshine and warmth and I am enjoying a kind of double-spring scenario. This post is actually about the differences between London and Scottish Borders, but I don’t feel it has been enlightening or anything other than a bit of a late-blooming-amaryllis-appreciation.
