The Last Day of March

Wild violets clinging to the edge of a tank track on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire

I took a walk on the last day of March.  We've had some wonderful weather and the world looks good.  The violets surprised me, so rough were the conditions for them at the dried out edge of a scumbly rock hard tank track.  (Scumbly is a word I just made up). 

My grandmother Violet Ann celebrated her birthday in the early spring and mum tells of how she and her brothers and sisters would walk out across their Dorset farm to a spot where masses of wild violets grew on a shady bank.  They would pick a bunch to take back for Nana's birthday present.

I remember the place where I grew up in Hampshire and the long lane bordered by ancient hedgerows, darkened by overhanging trees, dappled here and there with a little bit of sun where each year we saw the patches of violets, white ones among them.  Every year it was new all over again and precious.