(Kitsch) Spring

Dear readers,

Often, as March draws to a close, I wish Mother Nature would slow down her dazzling spring parade here in my corner of the woods.  As I was driving along the Loire this morning, the placidly flowing river to my left and the graceful mansions on my right, I spotted blooming wisteria on a sundrenched wall. 'Too soon', I murmured to myself, 'not yet, please'.  It was only yesterday, or so it seems, that I was saying good-bye to the wild snowdrops in neighbouring coppices.

Wild spring flowers are my favourite, I think; more precious still because they are as ephemeral as the tantalizing March sunshine.  I take time every day to see their beauty, both fragile and yet hardy as they withstand the temperamental weather.  There is a little sloped garden, a few minutes stroll away from our home, which always delights me.  It calls to mind late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century millefleurs tapestries of flowery meads where spring grew eternal- green, green grass with a rich scattering of simple pale yellow primroses, a handful of tiny violets, blue-tinged periwinkles and dancing cowslips. Simple spring garden flowers, as familiar to us today as to our forebearers five centuries ago.  Is it any surprise that the six millefleurs tapestries in the Musée de Cluny in Paris known as the Lady and the Unicorn series celebrate the sensual delights of taste, smell, sight, hearing and touch?  I know my children, like many others, instinctively bend down to smell and caress these flowers as they walk by and many of them are edible too, of course.

This is the early spring I like to commit to memory for the warmer months ahead when Nature always seems two or three steps ahead of me.  A few moments of pleasurable nostalgia. For now Angélique and I will continue to wear violet perfume and to gaze admiringly at freshly sprung primroses.  There is nothing more exquisite and heartening.

Are any of you familiar with The Orlando Consort's fabulous recording of Medieval and early Renaissance songs and motets celebrating gardens in music?  The Rose, the Lily & the Whortleberry, which was released a few years ago, is a treasure and the selection of miniature paintings of Medieval gardens in the accompanying booklet a visual treat.

Flora Chick and Miss Blossom, my two latest hares (who will be celebrating Easter in Florida), were photographed just minutes before a downpour.  Fortunately the mossy ground was dry.  Please forgive my kitsch pictures, won't you?  I'm still in high spirits after my good news a few days ago and the kind-hearted, supportive comments you left me on my previous post.  How may I thank you all?

A bientôt,

Stephanie