giving thanks for July beauty

Dear reader, I hope you don’t mind if I play a little word-game with you? No? Then close your eyes, and say the word ’July’, and wait. What comes into your mind? For me, it is the words of the poet Robert Herrick:

’I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers:

Of April, May, or June and July-flowers’.

You may have had an entirely different word-picture. Perhaps of holidays, the sea, and yellow sands. Or perhaps sailing on a board sparkling river between banks of reeds, hearing the song of the birds... Each one of us is unique, and our imagination lends us wings, wings that can be formed into words.

Living in the country, the constant rain during June has meant that we are now surrounded by every possible shade of green – the light green of the fields, the darker evergreen oak forests, and the even darker green of distant hills and mountains. Walking along the rural paths, flowers of every colour carpet the scene: yellow Tom Thumb, pink and white dog roses, purple irises and bull-thistles, white and purple borage, white rocket, fuchsia-coloured wild snap-dragons and pink pyramidal wild orchids – too many of them to name – while tall beige and brown grasses brush my legs softly as I go by.

Colour is alive in the town parks, too; the town councils make noticeable efforts with wonderful results. In people’s gardens roses hang over the gates as we pass and perfumed-flowers scent the air. Bright bougainvillea call from the walls of the coastal towns. Can we ask for more? We go on our every day lives surrounded by this July beauty, but do we notice it? Do we, each one of us, give thanks?