Come outside

This week I've been writing an article about wild swimming. As well as being absolutely fascinating, it has made me think about the joys of being outside, and every chance I've had, I've been in the garden, or nipping out with my camera to take photos of blossom or flowers. Today, fittingly, I found this little Brexton picnic hamper in a second hand shop. It is a bit rusty, but the green flask, china cups and saucers with a green stripe and tiny salt and pepper pots swung it for me. It'll be a lovely prop in some photos for the local magazine I work on, I've already got plans for it. 

I also spotted this beautiful hamper in my local antiques centre. Didn't buy this one (too expensive!), but it is a cracker. 

As part of the wild swimming article that I'm writing I've been digging out quotes from books about the joys of river swimming: The Wind in the Willows, Swallows and Amazons, Three Men in a Boat, and less innocently, The Go Between and Women in Love. It has transported me back to a golden age. I am fairly sure that I took my first tentative swimming strokes in a local river, Maxey Cut. Anyway, those halcyon hot summer days are some way off, although we've had some beautiful sunny ones here recently.

The trees are loaded with blossom.

I took this one of our village church today with the Magnolia blossom just starting to come out. I thought it looked quite celestial.

An avenue of blossom covered trees. Reminds me of Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery, when Matthew is driving Anne home from the station to her new home (and she is unaware that he and his sister Marilla were expecting a boy orphan instead). 

And finally, daffodils. I am not a huge fan, but I can't deny that they are a cheery sight.