So, today I was driving to the school run, and Becca was sitting next to me, and Mabel the dog, was sitting in the foot-well. I have a small car. It was cosy. That familiar stale flower smell, fogged up windows, stressed-dog-breath... You get the idea. Becca is very good at conversation, besides flowers I think perhaps the art of conversation is her next best skill. I am rubbish at conversation, and drift around in the fog inside my head - so the car, the dog. It had finally stopped raining.
Mabel captured by Taylor & Porter Fine Art Film Photography
Our topic of conversation often covers the weather. We are British. Our weather matters to us. It is quite unpredictable and mildly eventful, in that it will always surprise us, and give us something in common to talk about. The weather is safe ground. This winter has been so mild and wet here Becca had stored away some amazing stats. On how many more species are in flower now, in January, compared to last year. Hundreds more than last year. So, we wondered, how are the flowers which are coming out so early going to be looking when they normally flower, so like, when we have booked weddings and actually need them? Who knows? We think they'll just flower slow and steady and finish only marginally earlier than normal. It kind of depends on the weather in early spring. Well now. What will the weather be like in early spring? Is that just wishful thinking?
In other news, all this water has been fabulous for the otter population of the UK. Who doesn't love an otter. Cute. Sharp teeth. Bad at crossing roads. Also, I had to stop my car for a toad! The other good thing about January has been the amazing number of rainbows in the sky. Our drab, grey, leaden trips to school are not usually sprinkled with that kind of uplifting, colour filled awe. Man, you appreciate that rainbow more in January. As Janet and Luther quite rightly say, the best things in life are (actually) free. So, do you think otters can see all those colours, they love rain, and spend quite a bit of time floating about on their backs, munching on fish, chillin' ... For us, who spend bloody ages talking about colour, and what colour goes with which other colour, and what sort of pink that pink actually is, when you put it next to the red, or the blue, just getting a blast of all those colours is like 'power refresh'. The sky just pressed shift f5.
Fine Art Film Image by Imogen Xiana
I used to think rainbows were a bit cheesy, a bit ‘hippy’, kind of idealistic, a bit too in-your-face, keen - not in a good way. Co-opted by hippy counter culture and 'peace'. Similar to the way sunsets have been forever tainted by the 1980's, Athena posters in smoky cafes, grease-hazed, Wham, Bay Watch, Days of Thunder, Berlin, Cocktail, Tom bloody Cruise. Tom cruise = sunsets. Ruined in the imagination of people in their late thirties to late forties all over the western world. Reclaim rainbows from the sepia tones skies of the seventies people. In more other news, today we noticed something ate ALL the green leaves off of our autumn sown ammi and daucus. Leaving jaunty little green stems in a tray. You can’t get the time back. Long live January's rainbows. And otters. And toads.
I just re-read this. I am such a child of my generation. I apologise (see?).
