Cherries

I have been watching the fruit trees in the orchard as if watching them would somehow encourage them to blossom. Then yesterday or last night or this morning, anyway some time when I wasn't looking, the cherry trees went from bud to full flower in what can only have been hours.

I have a fellow blogger from Prague staying with me at the moment and so have been showing off the fecundity of my garden, with last year's cherries out of the freezer - an exquisite taste of summer! And will this year's harvest be as good? The loud humming sound coming from the cherry trees suggests the bees are busy already, so fingers crossed.

The arrival of Summer

A couple of days ago we were sat on the terrace outside our house drinking tea in the warm Czech sunshine. A breeze came up and suddenly the air was full of the petals of the cherry tree in the orchard. My husband commented that it was like being married once again only with cherry blossom instead of paper confetti.

All over the countryside the trees are full of blossom: in the forests and on the apple trees that line the roads and give the traveller sustenance as well as shade. The cliff that forms one roadside on the route out of Cesky Krumlov to Ceske Budejovice is covered with the purple of wild lilacs. All the pastures are bright yellow with dandelions and the water meadow beside the lane to our small village is full of marsh marigolds. Summer is arriving with a flourish and as if to confirm its presence a cuckoo is calling in the woods above the house. To honour the change of the seasons in villages across Southern Bohemia huge maypoles have been erected and bedecked with ribbons of many colours.