A perfect Spring evening at Wendy's tree

Last Monday evening, I walked round Hambleton peninsula with Angela.  Towards the end of the walk, we sat for a long while on Wendy's bench.  It was dark by then.  So many things about the evening were perfect, that it made me feel Wendy could not have chosen a better spot.  And it happens that it's a special place for Angela too, because by chance she and her husband Mike used regularly to walk to the place where Wendy's tree is now.

It was a beautiful sunset, with a blood-orange sky to the West and the light of a near-full moon reflecting pale silver off the lake to the East.  There are primroses here and there by the track, and wide swathes of bluebells on the southern side of the peninsula.  One or two early pink campions are out too, and at one spot there is a little colony of wood sorrel showing their delicate little white flowers.

Best of all, the nightingales were singing.  We paused a long time listening to one in the woods near the biggest patch of bluebells.  I tried to spot the bird by silhouetting it against the moon, but without success.  It's the first time I ever have been completely sure I was listening to a nightingale.  There was no doubt at all: so varied, so tuneful, so inventive.  At times a bit like a thrush, other notes reminiscent of a robin, still others like a blackbird, but some phrases and lilting notes that could have been no other bird. By then, the bats were hunting silently through the shadows above our heads.  As we sat on Wendy's bench, another nightingale sang from the trees close behind the bench and the evening star shone over the lake.

Sheep or rabbits are still nibbling the flowers we planted around the tree: two little narcissi were out a couple of weeks ago, but these are gone now.  Wendy's new tree has not yet burst into leaf, but it can't be long.  The buds are swelling, so all seems well with it.  Life to live!