"If You Go Down To The Woods Today"

Himself and I took to the hills last weekend where we went walking and garden visiting . The weather was simply glorious. We walked part of Wenlock Edge in Shropshire, where we came across various wild flowers including violets, celandines, primroses, cowslips as well as bluebells which were just beginning to open. What took my breath away were the carpets of wood anenomes, which I have never seen in such numbers before ~

'Wood Anemone'
"The wood anemone through dead oak leaves
And in the thickest woods now blooms anew,
And where the green briar and the bramble weaves
Thick clumps o'green, anemones thicker grew,
And weeping flowers in thousands pearled in dew
People the woods and brakes, hid hollows there,
White, yellow and purple - hued the wide wood through.
What pretty drooping weeping flowers they are:
The clipt-frilled leaves, the slender stalk they bear 
On which the drooping flower hangs weeping dew,
How beautiful through April time and May
The woods look, filled with wild anemone;
And every little spinney now looks gay
With flowers mid brushwood and the huge oak tree"
~ John Clare,1793 -1864

More from Shropshire to follow.