Oh to be in England

Autumn is slowly fading into winter out here. We've just had our coldest morning yet - a chilly 15 degrees - and everyone is moaning, apart from me. Many thanks also to those of you that have been emailing me descriptions of the sights, smells and sounds of England in Spring; it's making me feel very jealous (you know who you are!).

The weather today reminded me of a beautiful Spring morning in the UK, and evoked Robert Browning's poem 'Home thoughts from abroad' - quite apt really. It was also one of dad's favourite poems. I remember him quoting it to me every springtime when i was younger:

Oh to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower-
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower

Now i feel really homesick. Better go have a beer under the palm tree I think!