Spring has Sprung

Spring is the season to relish rhubarb, though like most of us we can be relished at any time. Rhubarb is not the only fruit it is not a fruit, no flower by any other name could seem so sweet. It can be cooked with a crumble, covered with custard, caressed with cream, used as an unusual umbrella or in my case given as a delicious relish to taste, taste and thrice taste again.

Rhubarb relish is the relish of real distinction. In spring, you need only to lick your lips and rhubarb will melts in your mouth, show it the sight of steam, give it a suggestion of sugar, spice it with cider vinegar, sprinkle it with raisin d’etre and it has the justification to tempt any tongue.

Cowslips standing small.

There is little need for poetry to enjoy the delicate poise of these bold blooms that stand small above the trampled turf. It is becoming rarer by over cultivation, over grazing needing an organic environment.. But why not celebrate their stature while we can and enjoy some fairy, liquid lines:

Where the bee sucks, there suck I:

In a cowslip's bell I lie;

there I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat's back I do fly,

After summer merrily.

Then save the seeds for a particularly Seedy Sunday.

Mirabelle Plums Please.

The magical sound of bees humming among fresh blossom on bright spring days this year leads our March into April, while knowing the fool that the weather May make of our summer hopes.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

Mirabelle, there to savour,

sweet tastes of summer still to come.

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