Did you miss me?

OK, so I've been hanging out on my other blog 'The Writing Coach' just a little more recently, but I admit, I have been absent. 

So I'll get back into the swing of posting with these photos of Kew Gardens where I spent today.  Magnolias out in bloom, my favourite tree.  Ever since I read 'Moderato Cantabile' by Marguerite Duras as a sixth former, I've been entranced by these blossoms and their scent.  I remember my damned ignorance when our wonderful teacher asked us if we knew what a magnolia was; I hadn't a clue.  I sought out the blooms whose scent, apparently, might entice a man to kill.  The symbolism in that novel struck a deep chord, taught me how imagery might build in a novel, deepening meaning.  Nothing so dark about the Magnolias at Kew of course.  Just enjoying what felt like the first day of Spring.  But take a look at those petals against the sky.  It was Gerald Manley Hopkins who taught me to look up.

"Again, look overhead   
How air is azurèd;   
O how! nay do but stand            
Where you can lift your hand   
Skywards: rich, rich it laps   
Round the four fingergaps.   
Yet such a sapphire-shot,   
Charged, steepèd sky will not            
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:   
It does no prejudice.   
The glass-blue days are those   
When every colour glows,   
Each shape and shadow shows.            
Blue be it: this blue heaven."

- from 'The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe'