Spring Fever Part 1: Tiny Worlds of Colour

Spring came overnight

Apr 19, 2026

Spring came just in time this year (as it does every year). The dark, damp days were starting to feel like a thick, gloopy slog. Trousers constantly splattered with mud. Everything soggy: shoes, scarves, sanity.

Friends and colleagues checking: “when is it the clocks change again?”

There was colour, even in darkest February, but mostly the greens, greys and browns that had been bedded in for months.

Then suddenly, overnight, tiny exploding worlds of colour.

‘Butterfly Beard’

I went out for a walk, the clouds cleared for a wonderful 45 minutes, and there was a carpet of dandelions. Tiny purple and pink flowers emerged from the cracks in the walls. Buttercups were getting ready to sing Hoppípolla.

Spring in the West Country, it seems, doesn’t gently announce itself, it spontaneously combusts.

I say that. There was one very important advance party. Daffodils. Bloody daffodils. They arrived, on cue, in March, in isolated clumps like awkward house party guests.

The yellow cuts through the murk. But (and I realise this is heretical) they feel a bit like false prophets to me, arriving in fanfare, declaring spring is here without bringing the entourage.

Still, all is forgiven lemon trumpets. Out on my walk, letting my attention drift, I was hypnotised by tiny colourful flowers bursting into the landscape that weren’t there yesterday.

I had my macro lens on me so I entered their lost world and this is what I enjoyed: