The Big, Beautiful June Poem
Solstice sunrises, lightning bugs, raindrops on roses
Well here we are at the end of a truly beautiful June, and it is only fitting that we compose it a beautiful poem to say goodbye. All month you have been leaving your observations and seasonal thoughts on our weekly communal posts and now it is time to prop them all up alongside each other and see how they look.
Now I must apologise profusely here - I am finishing this off on a train journey and cannot for the life of me work out how to do our usual fancy poetic formatting from my phone. Poor show. You will have to use your imaginations. Normal service will be resumed next month, I promise.
For now let’s dive in. Your June:
On my short drive to work I pass three fields - the first a sea of red poppy , the next a hazy blue vista of linseed, the last white oxeye daisies
Droplets of water shining like diamonds on the lady’s mantle leaves
A roast strawberry Victoria sponge with a glass of prosecco and homemade elderflower liqueur
A small yellow gem of a summer squash peeking through the green foliage
Listening to the sea and walking paths next to hedgerows bursting with blackthorn, birds and honeysuckle on the Welsh coast
My first sweet pea this week - a bright hot pink one. It came out on the day of my dear Granny’s funeral and she loved sweet peas. It almost felt like it was her saying ‘I’m still here with you’
Harvesting a few sprigs of lavender for drying - our house is named ‘Lavender Cottage’ so I have planted several bushes in the garden
My beautifully laden rose bushes are drooping with the weight of the rain
The naughty pigeons nibbled almost all my perpetual spinach and my mixed salad leaves crop, and uprooted all my radish seedlings. After I feed the birds daily too!
A tall angelica stalk snapped accidentally, rescued, in a bottle on the kitchen table, filling the house with perfume in the night
A moment of calm watching scarce chaser dragonflies, repeatedly returning to the same perch, the abdomens gently expanding and contracting as they breathed
Busy lizzies, petunias, lobelia and geraniums giving me happiness every time I look out into the rain
Making elderflower cordial
From my bedroom window I can see the cherries are just starting to turn red... and no sign of any houses, which have all disappeared behind the trees for the summer
Driving after the rain smelling the petrichor
The sparrow family in my roof have ventured down to the feeder with their fat little wobbly chicks
Two wood pigeons outside my door bobbing and bowing and curtseying, perfectly in tune with each other
The goldfinches have returned, the gardenia is blooming, the swimming pools are open, the secondary schools are almost out for the summer, and the tobacco plants are just now appearing in the fields
The bees buzzing around the foxgloves in my Devon garden
Lit the hurricane candles in advance of house-shaking thunder, lightning, and several hours of pattering rain
Picking peas in their plump pods in my pyjamas first thing in the morning
Wellies on for walks
My first red cherry tomatoes from my two tomato plants
Baby birds abound
Writing this at 9.15pm in my garden under a slightly pink and cloudy sky listening to a blackbird splashing in the birdbath while all the other birds sing their goodnights
Our village Plant Swap - lovely cakes, a Northumbrian ceilidh band, and wonderful plants from each others gardens to take home
Pink peonies bursting
The thirsty ground lapped up the rain gratefully
The first lily flowers have opened in the pond
Pegging out washing, hearing a steady hum from diligent bees on the blossom on our raspberry canes
Evening wanders on the moors, glad to see skylarks and curlews overhead. And an unexpected moorland cow that sniffed my leg and startled me into an ankle deep bog
Skimming stones and paddling in rock pools on a long empty beach
I went to check the tiny apricot that is the first fruit on the tree from a stone. It dropped into my hand and I ate it
Just enough ripe strawberries in my tiny strawberry patch for me to eat every day with my breakfast
In southern Spain lemons are falling, literally, into our laps. Lemon on fish and avocados, chunks in sparkling water…
Walking the city streets and parks smelling the languorous lime blossom
Whit Friday which, round these parts, means the brass bands will be out in force later. A magnificent soundtrack a glorious sunny evening
That low orange moon
Three plump pigeons navigating the oh-so-thin branches of the newly planted cherry tree on our square to eat its tiny red cherries
The first evening primrose flower has popped open
The garden is full of primping ballerinas, with the peonies and roses jostling for attention
All the wild strawberries to eat
Joy of joys, A level season is over in our house!
Watching that extra special low lazy strawberry/mead/honey/rose moon rising over the London skyline. Over the Dockland buildings the skyscrapers of the city become like the megaliths of old, where the heavens and earth could align just right
Harvesting blackcurrants almost every day this week (they're early this year). Their tart sweetness is delicious with Greek yoghurt in the morning
The apple tree is laden with so many small fruits, I've been thinning out the smallest ones to make more room, though quite a few have fallen into the grass underneath
The scent of mock orange and honeysuckle
The sea on Tiree is always changing - from palest aquamarine to deepest turquoise and indigo. The contrast with the white sands is stunning
Camping in the New Forest. Cooking s’mores and potatoes over a campfire, swimming in the sea, collecting shells, building sandcastles, hiking past miles of cow parsley-filled hedgerows, being woken by the dawn chorus and the noise of rain on the tent roof, seeing the sun rise
The summer solstice sun lightened the sky at 3.42am and lit the perfect crescent moon just above it as I walked around my garden in the damp grass
Warm walks, cool swims, birdsong
Strawberries are over, blackcurrants, jostaberries and gooseberries at their peak
Summer Solstice celebration at a very remote ancient standing stone seeing pyramidal orchids in the fields at their finest
Watched the solstice sunset from the back porch. A blazing orange ball melting into the horizon of oak tree studded cornfield
Staying up is rewarded by a display of lightning bugs filling the air. So mesmerizing it often delays me going to bed
A narrow-bordered five-spot burnet moth laying her eggs on our self-seeded clover
My path covered in drifts of white jasmine blossom, the gorgeous scent rising as walked through it, soft as powder snow
A growth spurt amongst the brambles. Their scratchy stems reaching out, crisscrossing the paths, resulting in a ducking and dodging walk
The first raspberries from the garden canes, sharp sweet perfection - but also the first yellow leaves lying on the grass, only one or two but enough to cause an internal shiver
The cicadas love the heat, and their chittering from morning to late afternoon reminds me of very boring, lazy days from my childhood. The heat gives rise to very loud thunderstorms in the evening. And then, with some rain, the thumb-sized tree frogs chirp and sing all night
Walking the coastal paths of Pembrokeshire in the company of butterflies and skylarks
Watching the bats come out as the sun went down on a warm evening
Tottenham Marshes are frothy with matted clumps of heath bedstraw
I baked the Strawberry Shortbread from June in the Almanac!
3 days of 99F, 100F, and 98F heat and high humidity, only the fledged hummingbirds and their nearby chirping mothers are fast moving
Flying ant day! A huge colony of seagulls wheeling around in a column in the sky gobbling them all up
I have begun to harvest my cucumber 'mini munch' and it looks like we will have enough to share with our neighbours
Walking up the Midsummer meadow at sunset after singing at church, in a profusion of oxeye daisies
Here in Minnesota, US, we are under a heat dome and getting more rain than we have had in years in the northern plains. It is what I imagine monsoon season might be like and I am not loving it, but the air does have a lovely rain smell
Glorious! What a beauty she was. I had almost forgotten that it rained, way back then…
That’s it from me. Let me know how you enjoyed it and let’s do it all again for July.
So rich and beautiful, all the senses engaged, the joy of being outdoors and the tiny observed details.
Thankyou Lia. I had forgotten it rained too! (Everywhere could do with some more, to be fair.)