Blossom

So what’s to report today? Well, blossom is slowly giving way to the first light green leaves, which are more or less ousting the flowers on the blackthorns at the bottom of the road, pushing through the white like green beaks through shell. The cherry blossom in the car park at work hasn’t lasted long. There are shallow drifts of it here and there on the concrete that remind me of sand on a promenade. Pink sand, of course.

These are observations enough for a day, aren’t they? Isn’t looking out of the window as worthwhile as turning on the news? Could wars and disasters elsewhere in the world leave blossom gaudy? Is peering into life’s safe and uneventful corners, when so much else of it is scorched and pummelled, simply crass? Not at all: these moments of quiet beauty are what’s at stake. Wars should be fought for cherry trees – and you might climb one to escape a tsunami, where the blossoming boughs may just comfort you while you await rescue. Or is that crass? Would you hate the sight of cherry blossom for as long as you lived after you eventually climbed down, shivering and exhausted? Well, no-one could argue that it would be a loss to you if you did. So these are the things that above all we should fight not to lose, for ourselves and our fellow men and women. I think. Anyway, I’m off to grow a long beard and put flowers in my hair.