Thank You, Moon

This afternoon walking up one of the steep paths 

at  the NT's Killerton House, with an orchestra of crows all around us,

I'm thrilled to see

snowdrops -  I love their tiny bell abundance -  but I never seem to take a photo of them that  I'm satisfied with  - the same goes for crocuses. But then, lying in the grass, I spy a large pink petal, look skywards and 

 gasp to see this glorious 

Magnolia

in full waxy bloom which I would have walked straight past.

More unexpected spring....

 still not satisfied with the focus on this sweet snowdrop..

but love the late light brightening, softening everything...

We head back to the house, for a cup of tea, cake...

and pass by this Skimmia berry arrangement that someone has left in the hollow of  a tree - a shrine of rubies to winter.

As we leave the cafe Robin says,

"To be perverse, would you be OK to go home a different way?"

I hesitate, it's getting dark, I always want to go home the quickest way. But I say yes.

Then I say no. Then I say yes again. But grumpily. I know how much he likes to drive around. So we turn left - the scenic route -  narrow, rutted, muddy lanes.

Then I have a tirade in my head about why I just had a coffee and a slice of Bakewell tart I didn't want and why I'm doing it yet again  - trying to please him, but resentfully- such little skin off my nose to drive a different route home.

  Some of my internal tirade leaks out. He says, sorry, sorry. I say, how is it your fault I say yes when I mean no?

 But he just says sorry, sorry.

 And suddenly I notice the tall hedges beside the road in front of me and  the sliver light in the puddles and the black skeleton of the trees and the luminous peach sky....and how determined I am to be cross.....

So I say, Sorry and this is a good way to go home....and we can drive this route another time.

Then I stop the car, get out and cross the road 

to take photos of 

the sun sliding behind the clouds...

darkening, muting this raw Devon farmland. Turning back to the car,

I see the moon on the other side of the road,

suspended there between the pylon wires,  where it's been all the time, waiting for me to notice it ....waiting for me to love me ......especially the me who wants her own way - all the time....that me who needs extra love ....that only I can give her. 

Thank you, moon, for hanging in there with me. 

Same moon, later, at home..