Sublime Blue

Bluebells at Dusk

Last wednesday evening I went walking with friends in some woodland down in East Sussex. The bluebells have been better than usual this year, prolific and lasting for weeks and we walked among them as the sun was gradually sinking. The sublime blue hovers like a misty haze just above the ground and as the dusk deepens it turns slowly from blue to purple. We hoped to see badgers or foxes but despite staying quiet until it was dark all we saw was a tawny owl.

Afterwards we walked back through the woods to our hosts who own and manage the woodland and who keep 25 peacocks around their house including one pure white one. Their cries had been piercing the night since we arrived. Several of the peacocks were displaying their tail feathers fully and engaging in some courtship behaviour, but I did not see any glimmer of interest from the peahens, they were playing hard to get. We were served Victoria sponge made with peacock eggs.

It is not only the bluebells that have been wonderful this year but also the hollows carpeted with the white starry flowers of wild garlic and the boggy woodland studded with magenta orchids, the creamy blackthorn blossom in the hedgerows and the pale yellow primroses on the stream banks. I look forward to the wild anemones that come next.