One of the much-looked-forward-to sights of April: blossom on the trees. Here by the city walls, on Queen Street, opposite the Railway Institute and Fleetways. Not just beautiful blossom but the pleasing new growth of a bed of rose bushes, all set against the green of fresh new growth on the grass.
This particular photo was taken on this day four years ago. The blossom may be out on Queen Street just the same today, or it might be a little later this year, or a little earlier, as it does of course vary slightly from year to year.
There won’t be any blossom from this particular tree, as it appears to have been removed, and a younger one replanted in its place, which will take a good few years to be of a size to produce this amount of blossom. But there are others nearby.
The roses have gone, and haven’t been replanted. I only know this because their disappearance was mentioned on Twitter a year or two back, and I remembered this photo. I don’t know why I remembered it. Or why I took it. Presumably because it looked so pretty, this combination. But it’s odd for me as this is the only photo I took that day, and that’s unusual, as normally once the camera’s out I take a lot.
Anyway, the roses are gone. That perhaps doesn’t matter, except that when the question was asked about their disappearance it was also mentioned that they’d had a plaque with them, as if they’d been a memorial, or perhaps a gift presented to the city. Does anyone remember that?
There’s a more general point here too, something I’ve wondered, whether gifts of plants and trees, memorials of plants and trees, are as common in cities as they used to be, and whether it’s perhaps a good thing if they’re not, with cuts to council services. Plants need tending, and I get the impression there’s not the funding or staff to tend to them.
Anyway, there are still many trees full of blossom in the Queen Street area and opposite the station, and indeed all over, so we should make sure we take a moment or many to appreciate this fleeting, delightful, cheering spring thing.
Thanks so much for recording that. I’ve got no memory of seeing them in reality – there’s so much that we miss when wandering around our beautiful, historic City. Maybe it’s an age thing; maybe it’s that we don’t look hard enough; maybe we’re just too wrapped up in our everyday lives, rushing from one thing to another which seem to be important at that particular time; maybe…….there’s too many maybes.
I’m heading back home on Monday, for a few days: my trips back home to the City of my birth and roots are becoming too infrequent for my liking and there’s a few things that I want to re-visit that stir up old, happy memories for me such as the RSPCA watering vessel for dogs on Clifton: just an old pot thing, you probably think, but to me it represents a time when I would go to the old Clifton cinema, as a 6 y.o. on a Sunday afternoon with my sister. I had a look on google street view a couple of weeks ago and bugger me, it’s still there! I don’t know if it’s the one that I saw in the 60s but the fact that, even if it’s a replacement, it’s still offering dogs a well earned drink: maybe after a romp in the Homestead or along the riverside, shows that someone still cares.
Always a pleasure to read your comments Mike, and yes I know the little drinking trough you mean. The Homestead is still there too of course. Some things stay the same. Well, perhaps not exactly the same, trees will have fallen and new ones been planted, and so on, but yes, people still care about the place and its details. Enjoy your visit back home.