Small Flowered Willow Herb

open country

I was lifting short cuts of wooden boards out of my car when I decided to empty the rest of the items that did not need to be in their just now.

There was also a bucket, a box of nets, white trays and bug boxes – the remnants of some beach activities in July.

I pulled the nets out to clean and sort them and I noticed something that was not a net. A knobbly stick, blanched by the sea was among the green and blue mesh. I pulled it out and smiled as I felt the smooth weathered areas and looked at the orange stone with quartz seams.

Then I noticed a couple of red-brown spots. That was where my finger bled after I snipped it with the scissors. The children who came that day were energetic and I was fighting my tiredness. I had also promised a couple from Coldingham that I would assist them with wildflower identification.

I was determined to please everyone – the boys wanted to river dip and the girls wanted to make journey sticks. In my head I calculated a slot for each activity and now I was hurriedly getting string ready so that we could collect our pieces of memory on the walk back to the sands.

The children were elated at the sight of my blood dripping on the dry pebbles. Instead of retrieving my first-aid kit I wrapped a tissue round the small but open wound and tied it with string – now it has become part of my memory/journey stick.

If I had compartmentalised the activities in my head, they certainly have now been formatted that way in memory. As if it was a new activity I began to go through the dense mats of wild flora.

On the edge of the sands a herbaceous border has built up with many common flowers that are not peculiar to coastal margins. Hawkbit with its small stubby leaves that look like a creature has bitten them, the gently fragrant lady’s bedstraw, the clutching-climbing meadow vetchling and the creamy white clover.

Push back some taller plants and you will see the small but beautifully formed doves-foot cranesbill; a miniature wild geranium. Tangled in the grasses are the little white stars of lesser stitchwort and occasionally showing are the less seen white campion.

Willow

Willow

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