Hope Springs Eternal
Or in this case, the ‘eternal hope of spring’…
It certainly won’t surprise you to hear me say that I truly love living in Ireland.
Yes, it is very green most of the year.
Yes, it is a mystically ancient land.
Yes, it is seaside and mountain and valley and wood.
It perhaps might surprise you to hear me say that there are drawbacks to living in Ireland.
Yes, it is perpetually damp, driving the chill to the deepest marrow of the bone.
Yes, it is dark in the winter for more hours than I care to count.
Yes, it is windy with a substantial portion of drizzle thrown in for good measure.
But, it all balances out when in mid-January this sight meets my winter-worn eyes…
How lovely!
15 Jan 2008 at 5:38 am
Somehow it takes the grey away at this time of year to see the bulbs peeping through - and for many months to come, gladly.
15 Jan 2008 at 10:19 am
I won’t be seeing sights like that (and it will be daffodils not that beautiful flowers) until beginning of May.
15 Jan 2008 at 12:31 pm
Sights such as that brings out the spring fever in me and the desire to get out there and get my hands dirty.
15 Jan 2008 at 1:00 pm
That absolutely fascinates me — the difference a few degrees latitude makes. We won’t see crocuses here until March — unless something weird happens, which I wouldn’t rule out. One year we had the daffodils coming up in January because the winter was so mild. Then everything died when we got a blizzard that April.
15 Jan 2008 at 1:06 pm
I am sorry but that is just wrong! Flowers in winter. Come on. I live in Indiana and keep praying for a big snow storm to go play in and you have flowers in Ireland. It just seems wrong to me. I am not trying to be offense. I think that my husband and I are two of the last people in the world who truly enjoy SNOW and tons of it. We keep joking that we are going to move to Buffalo, New York because they get it by the foot or Colorado because it starts snowing in October. We just can’t seem to leave this little town we live in. Enjoy dreaming of spring!
15 Jan 2008 at 1:29 pm
How pretty! I visited Ireland in early December in 2001, and I couldn’t believe how lush it was, even with the approach of winter!
15 Jan 2008 at 1:49 pm
What a beautiful sight! All is still bleak and brown here in the Finger Lakes of New York. But I’ve got my garden books and my sketchpad out, planning the garden that I will put in this spring. Spring is on its way!
15 Jan 2008 at 2:29 pm
The flowers and photo are lovely! With all the snow on the ground we won’t see any flowers for months. That’s why I force bulbs inside this time of year. I have had some spectacular white amaryllis this year, which bloomed just in time for Christmas, and will plant some paperwhites soon. I love their fragrance.
15 Jan 2008 at 2:50 pm
And here I always thought you got tons and tons of snow, ’til April!
15 Jan 2008 at 3:52 pm
How beautiful! We won’t be seeing anything so lovely until March or so, but we’ll undoubtedly get a couple more big snowstorms, which are very pretty in their own way.
15 Jan 2008 at 6:02 pm
Oh, that’s lush! I love winter - and you have to when you choose to make your home in Minnesota - but the coming of spring always takes my breath away. Thanks for sharing the lovely photo!
15 Jan 2008 at 7:04 pm
Wow a sure sign of spring. I had to laugh though, aside from the mystically ancient land’s you could have just described our area of washington state! ( i type as it is 25 degrees out and still iced up at close to noon!)
15 Jan 2008 at 8:19 pm
lovely! lovely! lovely!
16 Jan 2008 at 6:13 am
Absolutely beautiful!
16 Jan 2008 at 6:44 am
Oh,, I miss this great wonder in january… There is not much in the ground “over here”
21 Jan 2008 at 11:09 pm