Month: March 2021

These first days after the easing of the lockdown in England coinciding with the unfurling and blooming of nature in spring and the Easter break hopefully marks a turning point bringing the promise of new activities and easing of social restrictions.

From 29th March, changes to the Covid regulations in England will mean some limited relaxation of the current rules around social and outdoor activities. However, it is imperative to emphasise the need to be responsible and careful in the way we carry out these activities. Needless to say that evidence stacks up that it is safer for people to meet outdoors rather than indoors, however, outdoor gatherings have to conform to the Rule of 6 or two households. Even outdoors we need to avoid crowding places and keep social distancing.

There is more guidance available on the Plymouth City Council website: https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/coronaviruscovid19information

A very warm and luminous greeting to you from the editor’s desk this spring time; I pause to breathe in the beauty of this annual changing of the seasons. Every year, it comes, and I know it will; yet it never fails to amaze me by its promise of welcome changes, new life and energy, longer and lighter days.  Poets have over the years sought to capture its meaning signalled through the many changes which we all see and experience around us. Their words have evocatively captured their interpretation of the beauty of spring when nature bursts forth into fresh beginnings.

The following words have been penned to accompany the photographs taken by fellow Trustee and friend Professor Awadhesh Jha.

Magnolia trees burst forth into flowers almost on cue
Branches profuse with their waxy furry, 
yet so soft buds. Oh! so many, not few, 
The leaves will come much later in a flurry.
Their flowers in shades of white and pink and rose,
Star or lily shaped, or saucer-like their decadent flamboyant petals.
Their smell wafts in the pleasant evenings. Calm repose. 
Reminding us of memories past, together for events specials.
The genus, so ancient bequeaths resilience 
We too for surviving must have patience.

“Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal Written at Grasmere (From 1st January 1802 to 8th July 1802)” in Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. I (of 2), by Dorothy Wordsworth, edited by William Knight, London: Macmillian and Co., Ltd., 1897.

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Yellow, the colour of spring so full of charm and grace fills our beings with life and energy. Yellow with that dhani shade of green (colour of wheat plants, we can call it spring green) beckons, enriches and nourishes from the fields and pathways, around houses and corners. Yellow forsythias bloom so richly, never a leaf edges in in their riotous blooming. The hedges of orange glow pyracantha Firethorn reminding us of the warmth of the sun are a sight to behold.

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The daffodils, narcissi in their shades and hues and plumages are there everywhere, by the roadsides, in the roundabouts, in the fields and the gardens. Gracefully swinging and nodding in the breeze, dancing to their own magical, celestial beat. Tantalising beauty, filling us with hope.

This brings to mind the famous poem by Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a Cloud.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze…

This beautiful evocative poem was inspired by a walk William Wordsworth took with his sister Dorothy, who was a poet and a writer herself in the Lake District. Dorothy’s journal entry describes the walk:

It was a threatening, misty morning, but mild. We set off after dinner from Eusemere. The wind was furious.….The wind seized our breath. The lake was rough. … we saw a few daffodils close to the water-side. We fancied that the sea had floated the seeds ashore, and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and yet more; and at last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and above them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow, for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, that blew upon them over the lake; they looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing.

Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal Written at Grasmere (From 1st January 1802 to 8th July 1802)” in Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. I (of 2), by Dorothy Wordsworth, edited by William Knight, London: Macmillian and Co., Ltd., 1897.

Dr Smita Tripathi
SAaS Newsletter Editor