Calverley Woods
The rowans went over all at once this year. This one had bent right down over the path, close enough to look at properly without stopping anyone behind me.
Rodley Nature Reserve
First morning cold enough to see your breath. Every gap in the hedge had one of these in it, and they were gone by nine.
Ilkley Moor
A fortnight late, but worth the wait. You smell it before you're properly up the hill — warm and honeyish, with bees in it the whole way along.
Golden Acre Park
Still green, still firmly on. A fortnight of this heat and the path under the oaks will be unwalkable in soft shoes.
Shipley Glen
Foxgloves always turn up where something's been cleared or burnt. This lot had taken over a patch where a tree came down in the winter.
Hardcastle Crags
Knelt in a wet path for ten minutes over something the size of a thumbnail. Longest I've looked at anything all month.
Meanwood Beck
Two days of rain and it was up over the stepping stones. Loud enough that I didn't hear the train go past.
Otley Chevin
Nothing else was doing much, so I spent the walk looking at walls. Decades of this on one coping stone, and it only grows where the air is clean.
The back garden
Didn't even get out of the gate for this one. Hard frost overnight, and everything left in the border had furred over white.