Apple Blossom Time

Almost the last day of April, and I go out into the cold april wind to capture the beauty of the valley in apple blossom time.

The sun is shining, and the sky is a benign shade of blue, but it is only April, up to her old tricks. The wind is sharp, and straight off the distant peaks where the snow has not yet submitted to the spring sunshine. The river runs fast and begins to turn murky, but it is saving its serious threats for when the weather turns warm and the streams from the high mountains race and tumble down into the rivers that descend into the valley.

That is the future - today the apple blossoms have passed the pink shade and are beginning to open into all their tender splendour and fragrance.

With them the dandelions spread a carpet of gold across the meadow, - beautiful in their own right, and so maligned. Poor Dandelions.

I'll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time - A song which Husband and I carried through the war years from the time we met until the May we were married - it could so easily have been I'll Be With You in Dandelion Time. But somehow it is not so redolent of romance.... Perhaps because the beautiful fragrance is lacking in the fields of dandelions, and even more because the apple blossom holds the promise of a bountiful fall harvest, whilst the dandelion can only promise a puffy white ball of seeds to blow away, and tell time by, according to ancient lore. Or if you are especially in tune with nature you might pick some tender new dandelion leaves for salad, for tea or for wine.

Pale little Dandelion/In her white shroud/Heareth the angel-breeze/Call from the cloud;
Tiny plumes fluttering/Make no delay;/Little winged Dandelion/Soareth away.

Helen Barron Bostwick [1826- ? ]

I digress here, - back to the fragrant tender apple blossom and its special meaning in our lives, - Husband's and mine.

The young are quick to believe and think positively, and it was my belief that we would be together in apple blossom time, although I'm sure Husband had many more minutes and hours of danger that might have caused him slight doubt. (an understatement)

Fate smiled upon us, and we were married in Apple Blossom Time, starting our lives together. Sixty two years later Apple Blossom Time is with us again, - still with its same magic.