Flowers out of season

This month , our strange and unpredictable maritime climate has brought floods and frost. Winter should be here, yet warmer days fool nature into skipping a season and giving us signs of spring. Today I found a periwinkle (Vinca major) still in flower in a shrub border.

A falling leaf from the Liquid Amber tree , rests on a pink camelia flower.

Camelias breaking bud on an unseasonably warm December day.

This is a summer poem, but one that speaks of peace in a tranquil garden.

Supper by Walter de la Mare

I supped where bloomed the red red rose,

And a bird in the tree

Looked on my sweet white bread and whistled

Tunes to me.

And a wasp prowled in the evening light,

My honey all about;

And the martin to her sunbaked nest

Swept in and out.

I sat so still in the garden

That wasp and leaf and bird

Seemed as I dreamed the only things

That had ever stirred.