BLUEBELLS

What a treat!  A walk through the English woods at bluebell season!

As children, my sister and I used to go out to the woods and bring home baskets full of these lovely wildflowers--not something you would do these days, particularly in areas, such as the one we visited, which are dedicated to the enjoyment of the public.  It's a bank holiday, to boot, and we were more than a little surprised to find the parking lot so crowded that it took us a couple of tours before we were lucky enough to find a space.  Still, a great treat.

And a still greater treat to have my son and two of our grandchildren with us.  Here's Matthew, looking a bit like Moses...

... though, actually, God: he's preparing for that role in a local light opera society's performance of "Children of Eden," which we're planning to see next week.  Here's Georgia...

and here's Joseph...

...both wonderfully bright young people, growing up faster than we could have possibly imagined.  Here they both are with Ellie...

We followed the paths through the woods for quite a while...

... taking more pictures:  Here's me...

... and Ellie:

We took more pictures than could be included here, finding so many delightful and irresistible surprises along the way; a curious whorl--is that the word?--on the trunk of a tree...

... a tree of unknown variety, in full bloom...

... and dandelions everywhere.  I didn't know they could be quite so beautiful...

... and a fort made of sticks in the middle of the woods:

Such a wonderful day in the English countryside, after arriving tired and somewhat jet-lagged after a ten-hour flight and emerging into a cold, 48 degree, cloudy day--after boarding our Air New Zealand flight in 80-degree weather and bright sunshine in Los Angeles.  Talk about culture shock!

The flight was an easy one.  Time went by quite fast, with really good fare--for airline food!  We had opted for the slightly luxurious economy class and were rewarded with relatively comfortable seats, two in a row (a great blessing, so far as I'm concerned) and a wide variety of movies to choose from.  Knowing I could never persuade Ellie to see it in a theater, I chose "American Sniper"--a good film, in fact, and one that is at pains to show the devastating effects on the human psyche of killing other human beings in war; and "Mr. Turner"--though I never quite got to the end.  Hard to judge, too, from seeing it on the tiny screen in an airline seat, but I thought it could have benefited from a good editing.  It's long, at 150 minutes--and would have been more effective, I thought, in being more selective in its choice of themes.  I'd have been interested, too, in a greater emphasis on the cultural environment in which he worked.  Still, some magnificent-Turneresque land- and sea-scape photography made up for the film's other flaws.

Matthew, kindly, despite a multitude of other commitments, had driven down from Harpenden to pick us up at Heathrow, and we were grateful for the drive back to his home, where we'll be spending the next couple of days.