RDP Monday: LUSH

Hemlock Conium maculatum flowers, Boultham Moor, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, UK.
Photographer: Mick Talbot

By the end of this week I am going to have to have my air conditioner back in it’s place in my living room because we are in for a heatwave.

When I saw the weather report I flashed on my friends who have been on social media posting about wanting Summer to get here since before Summer ended last year- they are hardcore Sun worshipers and I am of the opinion that they won’t be truly happy until our Sun dies, turns into a red giant and in that moment when the earth is in the process of  swallowed by the Sun will they be truly happy.

I don’t like the Summer, I sort of like the Spring because the air does smell better and I do like to plant things like pumpkins and herbs .  The ground is soft and spongy and a little warm. It’s not the plants that strike me as being lush and alive during the Spring, but that’s how I feel about the Earth they are growing in.

Wolfsbane
Photographer Randi Hausken

The fact is, I don’t like Summer because Summer is a killer.

Nothing grows in the Summer when it’s hot. Everything touched by the Sun’s brutal Summer rays  will  to die and  as macabre and dark as I can be, I can’t say I enjoy that process. It’s like watching a murder scene in a movie in slow motion with a creepy three note soundtrack plinking away in the background.

But I will watch, with  morbid fascination,  as my friends and neighbors run outdoors throw their hands up to the sky and scream in joy as the Sun reaches down and does to them what it’s doing to their lawns the flowers in their gardens-

” The Sun makes me feel so alive. ”

Foxglove.
Photographer: Brian Eastop