Spring greens

Joe's nursery session last Thursday happened to be on a gloriously sunny morning. Which meant he got to play outside with a tub of water and I got to take a walk, lonely as a cloud, for a couple of hours.

My route was one which is very familiar to me, a walk I've done hundreds of times over the years. And part of it involves a section of rather muddy woodland. On one side: the River Irwell. On the other, steep banks of rock. It's soggy and richly green, a tapestry of mosses and ivy and ferns. I took all these photographs within a stretch of maybe ten yards.

One of my most prized possessions is an old, dog-eared copy of Roget's Thesaurus. I look words up just for fun. Yes I do. I love words, especially rather antiquated ones. And with this particular post in mind I decided to see what it had on 'green'. Not in the 'new', 'young', 'sour', 'ignorant', 'immature', 'pleasure-ground' or 'innocent' sense. In a green, the colour, sense.

Here's what I found:

432. Greenness - N. greenness, green, verdancy, greenery, greenwood; verdure, viridescensce; jade, emerald, malachite, beryl.

green colour, jungle green, Lincoln g., sea-g., Nile g.; bottle green, pea-g., sage g., jade g., celadon, reseda.

green pigment, terre verte, celadonite, viridian, verditer, bice, Paris green; chlorophyl, etiolin.

Adj. green, viridescent, verdant, emerald; verdurous, grassy, leafy; grass-green, porraceous; greenish, bilious; lime, chartreuse.

See? 

So much more interesting and descriptive than plain old 'green'. You see, I toyed with the notion of naming this post 'Fifty Shades of Green'. But then I changed my mind. Because despite all the purples and yellows and pinks suddenly appearing, to me spring is green. Shoots appearing. Buds bursting. Leaves unfurling. So 'Spring Greens' it is.

And when I got up close to all this life and growth I was amazed at the sheer, well, greenness of it. The layers, the variety, the depth. I wondered whether I should write this post at all. Would people find it too monochromatic? A bit of a 'nothing' post (not newsy or informative, no real story to tell)? But I was inspired. Both when taking the photographs and looking at them once I was home. 

Walking alone can be such a luxury, an opportunity to stop and explore and examine. To discover tiny details. And to wonder.