A HINT OF SUMMER

Now for those who live in U.K you might think there is a touch of irony in me heading this post,  " A Hint Of Summer." Hey, I only said a hint and ... despite this drenching of June rain, the signs are all around us that vegetative Nature (bless her) is trying her best despite the ... um ... wet conditions. The weather news is full of flood warnings, 28 for Wales alone and indeed sadly for some folk in the Aberystwyth area, homes have been flooded out. Up here I guess we are lucky in that the mountain drains, downwards. I live approximately half way up, so the water follows the laws of gravity and flows past us, all be it in torrents and gurgling gushings, but bypass us it generally does.

Up in the old churchyard, the ground is soaking all this lovely water up and all sorts of flowers are appearing day by day. Oxeye daisies are starring with their egg yolk yellow centres  and red clover are adding another colour to natures pallete. All along the strimmed paths, flowers are flourishing, making a walk around the area more interesting. The paths have been strimmed in such a way as to lead one around in the safest way possible trying to avoid the hazards of slanting gravestones and long sunk hollows. Only native species have been planted but increasing diversity to attract more insect activity.

This in turn provides food for all sorts of butterflies and moths as well as other insects, which also encourages more bird activity. On warm evenings it is wonderful to see the swallows and swifts swooping low above the vegetation as  do the bats as it gets darker of a night. Although the paths get strimmed regularly, the rest of the churchyard is just left to be as wild as possible and we only do one major cut of the whole area late in the year, usually around August time when all these lovely flowers and grasses have self seeded. It looks rather wild and natural but there is a specific management plan to keep it this way and few visitors realise just how much effort is put in by our volunteers to keep it looking so natural but all the work that gets put in is well worth the results throughout the year. Visitors come from all over the world to see this ancient church, many researching family history. The earliest gravestone found is dated 1730.

Though there are excellent records held in the church of the details of gravestones, time and weather have worn many of the details away, making them difficult or impossible to read. Sometimes only remnants of a whole stone remain, like this one propped against the old stone wall where buttercups and ox-eye daisies now grow in profusion. Also there are a few gravestones inscribed in welsh, now so sadly weathered they are almost impossible to read. I often wonder how this place must have looked in summers gone by. The earliest written record goes back to the 5th century, how did the summer visitors see the place then?

I also try and look at it from ground level. For a mouse or an insect, how different it must seem, more like a forest must appear to us with everything towering above and by no means seen with the same detail of colour that our human eyes can perceive. And yet the sense of smell in these other creatures is probably much more acute than ours.

And as for colour, I also wonder how minute creatures see the flowers that we enjoy.