Red maples

It's a red halo around my red maples. The maples that I smuggled from the States in my hand luggage 25 years ago. I brought five saplings with me — four have survived and are large trees by now. Our endemic maple (Acer platanoides) won't bloom for another week — with light green flowers.

April

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.

You know how it is with an April day,

When the sun is out and the wind is still,

You're one month on in the middle of May.

But if you so much as dare to speak,

A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,

And wind comes off a frozen peak,

And you're two months back in the middle of March.

Robert Frost

From Two Tramps in Mud Time 1936