Changing colours II

I had meant to write a bit about the beautiful month of May which, according to this wonderful magazine, is the month of bliss and joy for garden lovers. It’s a bit late now, May has come and gone, but not without leaving behind a few precious impressions which I want to share with you.

In late April, the fields were full of rapeseed and wonderfully lemon yellow and the trees were tender spring green; at the end of May and in early June there are all sorts of colours. I love the white of the common yarrow and its many siblings, and of assorted chamomiles. And the red poppies and blue cornflower…I simply love to see how the seasons change from spring to summer!

And now my absolute favourites:

Life is beautiful!

For my monochromatic friends

Winter landscapes are very simple things. When, in summer, you take a picture and upon inspection think ‘I don’t know, the colour takes the focus off the wonderful shapes, I think I have to convert the tonality into greyscale’ – well, then during the winter you certainly won’t have that problem. (You may never have it at all, in which case you’re eternally in the dark season. Sorry.) Everything is super-simple when there’s snow. Whatever you do, you get black-and-white stripey pictures. Simples. Only shape, no colour. Or hardly any colour. Here’s proof.

Railway line through winter forest

Snow clinging to tree

The lake: Monochrome, or just mono.

Mere hues of colour stand out very strongly against all this monochromatic homogeneity. Pinus sylvestris all of a sudden has a quite red bark:

Surprisingly red bark

Also always surprising because rarely to be spotted here in the plains when you live so close to the forest and trees therefore block out the horizon: a sweet, tentative winter sunset. Colour is secretly sneaking back into the landscpae just before night falls (at 4pm), it seems.