Early spring along the Thames

Should have been in the snowy valleys of Valdres, Norway, from last Thursday to Sunday, savouring the Hemsing Festival. But alas, my operation scheduled for two Tuesdays earlier, was cancelled without the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital admin even telling me; I only found out because I rang five times to check over confusion about a local or a general anaesthetic (the latter, obviously), to be told 'oh, they should have phoned you'. With the pain from the stent having intensified, and a cold on top of all that, I didn't feel I could cope with the travel. So I stayed at home, mostly rested and made some limited excursions which cost me afterwards but were well worth doing in such freakily warm weather (about which much has been said in a 'this-is-all-very-well-but' way I understand, though I do remember patches like this in mid-Feb from years back). And on Monday morning I had my op; stones and stent all out, so I'm moving more easily now if taking it quietly.

The above is spring tide at Chiswick Mall. Heading back from Chiswick House, I found a group of people, including cyclists with their shoes and socks off, hovering because the river water had come up on to the pavement as well as the road. But I could see it was going out, and waited, pleasantly chatting. Sometimes it's good to be detained by nature.

First springwatches, after various traversals of Brompton Cemetery on the way to and from the hospital, took place the previous week. First a Valentine's morning dream; high time to see what was going on in the walled garden of Fulham Palace. Not much, though the magnolia by the Tudor gateway seemed almost ready to flower

and potatoes were lined up In the glasshouse for planting.

This time we headed out of the south gate, to be faced by a very vocal robin on the fence that separates Fulham Palace gardens from All Saints Church

in the graveyard of which was the first crocus display I came across of any substance.

This one was especially surprising because of the humming of innumerable bees, which proves crocuses/croci are good for more than just saffron. I think the Palace is upping its supply of hives again after a big swarming left it with only one hive last year.

So we proceeded to a lunch in warm sun at the Garden Centre cafe, after which I wandered back to Fulham Palace to pick up a couple of scented geraniums from the cart for the window boxes (others have survived the winter so far). Time to admire the bare shape of the glorious copper beech, complete with nests, before it takes on its full beautiful leaf.

Next day, in the afternoon, to Kew for the first time this year. Its crocus patches used to be by the Victoria Gate, but now they're more extensive around the Temple of Aeolus

and in the arboretum area. From above:

and below:

with catkins to provide some contrasting colour.

More with a moon behind them between the larches of the lake

and same moon above one of the redone vases of the newly-restored Temperate House.

with that unique light of incipient leafing on the trees nearby.

After all this abundance, Chelsea Physic Garden wasn't doing a great deal, and I left in some dudgeon that the wonderful Tangerine Dream Cafe - slightly bohemian but easy going village-institute service, first-class food - had been replaced by some anonymous 'please wait to be seated' franchise; the corporate spirit has spread here (signed a petition some time back, but clearly the new director was not to be swayed). Much of the interest was in hangers-on from last summer and autumn - the pomegranates by the Swan Walk gate, being frequented by a squirrel,

a lone teasel with a backdrop of eucalyptus

and a sunflower husk facing the first flowering magnolia (M. denudata) I saw this year.

A frond of Dicksonia antarctica unfurling

and dwarf irises rather oddly displayed in an open-air cabinet were catching the light

while there was brilliant sunshine by the pond near Sir Hans Sloane's statue, the clam shells brought back from the voyage of Captain Cook's Endeavour.

Rather more classical ornamentation in what felt, in reality, like a really spooky late afternoon light at Chiswick House gardens the following afternoon

and more modest crocus displays than at Kew, but with a Palladian backdrop, and for free.

Camellias are already profuse in the Grade 1 listed, Lottery Fund-restored greenhouse (March is the official display month).

First coot nesting rather early on the lake.

The ring-necked parakeets which have spread upstream at least as far as Kensington Gardens are here too, as well as at Kew (top), and kissing on a willow by the Thames. Big debates going on now about culling, but still, to see them is as deceptively exotic as...high temperatures in February.

And so back as the sun set over Chiswick's church and brewery

with signs of spring life in some of the other gardens of Chiswick Mall

and another magnolia partly bloomed in front of the last house before the passageway with the Dove pub in it.

A new haunt discovered the following day when we attended a special commemoration of the great Blondin at Kensal Green Cemetery. But that's for another photojournal.

Brompton and Chelsea galanthophilia

Chelsea Physic Garden was advertising the first of its 'snowdrop weekends'. Though as a Friend I can pop along at any time, I thought it was a good opportunity to have lunch once more at the Physic's Tangerine Dream Cafe. Which in the end we didn't do, since I was so sidetracked by the masses of galanthi in Old Brompton Cemetery, always on my cycle route southwards, that I turned up a bit late.

They always cluster off the northern part of the great avenue which leads - in a modelling based on the approach to St Peter's Rome - to the chapel, currently under restoration.

Looking north:

Croci, too, were making appearances here and there,

not least to the side of this cross,

and the first of what I always think of as a special late-winter light, silver-brown, was illuminating one of the cemetery's most striking angels

as well as what is now established as a copy of a memorial for a 13th century Sienese saint containing the remains of artist Valentine Prinsep.

Overhanging the Swan Walk wall of the Physic Garden are the remaining pomegranates, symbol of Persephone's winter sojourn in the underworld

while within there were some rather gimmicky arrangements of snowdrops, though this one is at least  part of a tradition.

The most fascinating, for us at least, is a variety called 'Blewbury tart', which our dear friend Juliette Seibold claims was named after her by the Oxfordshire neighbour who claimed it. My favourite actually turned out to be a snowflake rather than a snowdrop, a relation in the family Amaryllidaceae: Leucojum vernum, the Carpathian variety.

The only other flourishers in late January were hellebores, not normally plants I'd chose for the garden, but look at the exquisite markings on this one.

A rose, 'Graham Turner', was doing surprisingly well

while berries add a splash of colour in the otherwise dormant order beds

and the striking remains of Helianthus annus 'Tall timber' remain sculptural,

complemented by the peppers in the medicinal garden.

One other specimen doing well: Brassica oleracea.

By way of west London coda, my three or four times-weekly visits to the gym in Normand Park, two minutes' walk away, give me passing insights into the great outdoors, and the other evening, as I was returning, I just caught the rising full moon through trees.

 Last daylight on the gym side:

Everyone got excited that this was a Super Blue Blood Moon  - the papers are making a thing of moons now, though that's fine if it gets more people looking - though it turned out that the UK wasn't getting the blood red effect. Still, how exciting for the fourth time since early November 2017 to see the craters on our nearest neighbour in space.