The meaning and value of life.

The news can be rather depressing and the more it becomes a list of  world atrocities and celebrity happenings the more it screws with societies understanding of the worth of the individual. This is something we should rile against. I think each life and individual is equally of value..... and so I wrote this poem.

Scales

I have seen great beauty

Drank deeply at the well of joy.

My kind deeds and words outnumber

Those I did enjoy.

And yet the bottom line in life,

My value and my worth,

Is measured by all Those who Are,

By what is in my purse.

Is the life of celebrities,

Millionaires and Kings and Queens,

Really that much more valuable,

Than those who live unseen.

The same sun shines on me.

The same rain quench my thirst.

I may be last and lowly,

But breathe the same air as the First.

Weighed upon life's scales

This life is worthless found,

But eternally we all weigh,

In dust, about a pound.

By Izzy.B.Silver  

Sunsets in spring.

In summer the sunsets are wonderfully expansive pink and orange skies.

We are not there yet, but this spring we have had some moodily sunsets, splashed with streaks of purple and pink.

Stormy looking clouds and indigo blues they are beautiful in a gothic sort of way.

 Stark black trees show off their fine fan like branches against this moody backdrop.

Gardiners Quarry, Malvern Hills, Worcestershire

Gardiners Quarry

Path up from Gardiners Quarry

Turn up path for Black Hill

 Today I parked in Gardiners Quarry, (WR13 6DN), and then walked up the main path. About half way up there is a T junction, and here I turned right and walked up towards Black Hill. The cloud cover today was thin wispy stripes of clouds. The light kept changing accordingly, sunny, overcast, sunny, overcast. 

It was a busy day for walkers as there was a charity ridge walk taking place. 

On Black Hill

Walkers on Black Hill Ridge

From the ridge you can see the town laid out like a toy town, and Black Hill overlooks the Three Counties Showground. It looked as though today there was a caravan show, but in two weeks time it will be the Spring Garden Show, and Gardeners World's BBC show will be coming from there on Friday 10th May. If you watch the show you will be able to see this part of the hill behind them.

View south towards British Camp

View east towards the Three Counties Showground

Walking down from the top of Blackhill

View north towards the Beacon

Aprils garden, beautiful things

Primrose

 April may have been cold, and flowers have suffered. Many which should be in full bloom are only just opening. There are however bright gems and jewels dotted around my garden, who's beauty illuminates the eyes and soul. 

A white, albino frittillery

The first tulip

Dotted about in my lawn are several types of naturalised bulb. The snowdrops are now a distant memory, but frittillery bloom in their place. Most of the frittillery are the snakes head variety, highly prized for the checker pattern of deep aubergine and paler purple. Some however are albino, and 
completely white. Whatever their colour they hang like curious anglepoise lantern.

Turks head lillies

Both the hyacinth and the smaller grape hyacinth are in their prime. The smaller grape variety form small clumps around the lawn. Both have a heavenly aroma.

Checker patterned Snakeshead Frittillery

The earliest of the tulip have opened. Less decorative than those that follow, they are closer 
to the original tulip cultivates.

Primrose, common easy to grow and with such a long flowering season are still performing beautifully, either the traditional yellow or the more modern purple, blues and reds.

Hellebore

Hellebore's, the Christmas Lanterns should really have all but disappeared by now, but maybe it is the unseasonably cool weather that has spurred them on to flower again.

The first blossom on the Victoria plum tree

 Just coming into season the fragile

Fat blossom buds on the greengage

 looking Turks head lily. These blooms are a reliable joy. They came free with an order about four years ago, and I was loathe to give them space. Every spring when they light up the little corner they were grudging planted in they bring me joy and do not deserve.

The trees are finally beginning to bloom. The pale beauty of the first blossom on the Victoria plum

Grape hyacinth

 are open, and the buds that bear the greengage and
 cherry blossoms are fat and round and expectant.
 I am hoping that this late start to the blossom
 season will mean the blossom will be safe from a
 late frost and that the harvest this year will be
 plentiful.

Sunshine, Elgar and bluebells, Malvern Wells Common, Worcestershire.

The Elgars bench path

Horse chestnut Avenue

A wonderfully warm morning, bathed in glorious sunshine. I parked in the upper car park off Peachfield Road and walked along the top path past Elgar's bench. Yellow wood anemones still adorn the lush green grass and the young leaves are now opening upon the horse chestnut avenue.

Elgar's Bench

Mirror like pool

 The pool is perfectly clear and still, reflecting the sky above as well as any mirror.

Blue bells just opening

Beyond the pool I found the first bluebells I have seen in flower this year. It will be at least another week before the bluebells on the west side of the hill open, but here on the east side spring is looking beautifully brilliant.

Bluebell detail

The hill above Elgar's bench

Why are the British so obsessed with the weather ? Worcestershire Beacon.

Steps up from West of England carpark

Today is a bit overcast to say the least. I decided as the views were going to be impeded I would climb the Worcestershire beacon right to the top. I might not be able to see much once I got there, but there would probably be few other walkers out today, and for a moment at least I would be the highest thing in all of Worcestershire. I am only just over 5 foot tall, so it's a nice change to be able to look down on others for a brief moment.

The weather however got me thinking. Why are the British so obsessed by it ?

Approaching the ridge

Tsunami, hurricanes, droughts causing famine and forest fires, monsoons and tornadoes, they just don't happen here. This years winter was one of the longest and most extreme in 100 years, but really it amounted to at most two meters of snow which melted in less than a month. So why does it affect us so ?

With no great extremes foreign travellers think our weather will be monotonous, but a stay of just a few day's on these shores highlight how great the repercussions of minor changes.

Turn left and the summit is in sight

Today is just two degrees cooler that the lovely warm idyllic few days that preceded it. Rather than dense fluffy white clouds floating in skies of blue, the cloud is a uniform thin grey blanket, veiling the sun from sight.

SAD, or Seasonally Affected Disorder is a recognised medical condition which I know causes it's suffers great pain. I am lucky to usually find the beauty in all weather, but today is the rare bland insipid sort of grey that causes my inner emo to resurface and relieve my melancholic teenage angst.

That said I was rather cheered by the poem it has inspired.

Under the weather

Exquisite agony and bliss

The frustrating tender kiss

To be surrounded by beauty

The Beacon

The inscription meaning I am "top" 

On a day so dull.

Without sunshine's blessing,

A hill is just a hill,

The landscape flat and lifeless,

Incline just a challenge to muscle.

The summit becomes the goal.

Its own point limited by pointlessness.

Arriving just to say you arrived,

The plaque

A couple enjoy the natural high

And then descend.

Shrouded in the grey,

Of a dull cloudy day.

Dark moods devour

Fragile spirits tenuous joy.

Unbidden fears encroach

A soul mired by solitude,

Isolated, lonely,

The scream no-one hears.

Just give me sunshine,

A little warmth and light.

Then life will feel worth living

Because and not in spite.

 By Izzy.B.Silver

Today's cloudy view

British Camp reservoir, Malvern Hills, Worcester,

Deep thoughts

I like to sit and think,

Besides a lake or pool.

Is it the language used,

That makes it seem so true.

To reflect on life where water,

Holds a mirror to our mind.

To see the light there,

Where sun skips on the surface.

To dive our deepest depths,

Where dark weeds drag and drown.

To let our mind view ,

Great vista's and vast horizons.

And finally focus on 

That one distilled answer.

A reflective poem, wirtten beside the reservoir at British Camp, by Izzy.B.Silver

Black Hill walk, Malvern Hills, Worcestershire.

 At this time of year, especially after such a long cold winter, it is all the more delightful to feel the tender caress of the soft sun on your skin. Enjoying the gentle warmth of this spring day I walked from Black Hill, northward along the ridge path on the western side of the hill.

Looking north along ridge

Looking south towards British Camp

Panoramic shot looking north

Catkins

 White clouds slowly slipped across the pale blue sky. Birds sang and as I stood in awe I watched a majestic kestrel hover in the sky above me.

Catkins illuminated by sunlight

Willow herb flames

Bluebell plants

 As I neared Gardiners Quarry I turned round and took a lower path through the dappled shade of the wood. Catkins like halos seemed to somehow become illuminated by the sunlight. Young willow herb plants peaked from the grass, red as tiny flames, whilst luxuriant green blue bell leaves greedily absorb the sunlight on the light dappled floor, preparing for their display of fine filigreed blooms.

View from the wood looking south