Flowering hawthorn heralds spring: Country diary, 24 April 1920

24 April 1920 The yellow gorse lives in a pleasant hum of bees while fowls and ducks find a feast of small live things that have come to life

Surrey, April 22
The hawthorn on the hedge side that faces the sun is in bloom, the south wind carries a thin fragrance all the way up the lane; sweeter than the almost overpowering scent that will come when the flowers are fully ripe; just above the ditch is the first campion, milk-white, half-hidden by nettles that every morning are taller by their night growth; across in the field a scythe rips through the green rye, you learn how luscious this long grass is by the way a horse waiting for a load tugs to reach down, at first vainly, for the rope-reins are tied to the cart shaft, but after much struggle he is able to tear up whole heaps of the swathe. Then the fowls and ducks, hastening, find a feast of small live things that have come to life and grown in the bottom grass. Last of all, a robin, leaving a nest somewhere in the faggot-stack, alights undaunted at your feet, hops a little way, comes back, discovers an insect, seizes and shows it before flying as if to tell you where the morsel will go.

Related: Country diary: the atmosphere in the hawthorn hedge is electric

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