London in Spring — Where my wheels go

A Spring breeze is blowing
I’m bursting with laughter
— wishing for flowers
Basho

Spring is here, with its limpid light and hydrangea-blue sky. There are flowers on every tree, on every street and in every park.
Magnificent magnolias, cool camellias, cheerful cherries, pretty pears. The Japanese have a word for rides like these; hanami.
Loosely translated it means finding a quiet space for blossom viewing.

a camellia falls
a rooster crows
another camellia falls
—Baishitsu
(Tr. David LaSpina)

In the gardens of Chiswick House, a lady wearing a heavily woven, multi-coloured wool coat leans over a camellia flower. Her grey hair is escaping from under her woolly red hat. Her bony hand reaches for the deep crimson, multi-petalled flower and she pulls it closer to her nose. She senses me nearby and pulls back, releasing the flower. “Doesn’t smell’, she says shaking her head, “you’d have thought they would, wouldn’t you?”
“You would”, I agree. “Despite the lack of scent, don’t you think that they’re nature's answer to rainy concrete and grey moods?”
“Nah”, she says, “they don’t smell. They can’t be the answer to a grey mood if they don’t smell can they?”

Wispy clouds and petals swirl on the ground and in the sky.

What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.
- Issa

In Ravenscourt Park, a group of nursery school children arrive dressed in thick coats and yellow gilets. They assemble under the short avenue of pink cherry trees and the teachers tell them ‘to pick the flowers.’
Two girls, in perfect synchronous movements, bend to a squat, scoop handfuls of the petals and then stand facing each other. They briefly look at each other, before they silently let the petals fall from their hands. They repeat this many times over. Not a word is said, not a movement is out of place.
Most of the children scrabble excitedly around and carve patterns in the pink carpet with their fingers. Pockets are stuffed, one boy puts some petals into his mouth. "Oh, yuck” says one of the teacher.

I glide through the quiet streets of Holland Park and Kensington. The Royal Borough, gleams with stucco, white paint and blossom. Every street sports a collection of shiny cars, huge magnolias and flowering cherry trees, their boughs heavy with blossom. Cherry blossoms are a symbolic flower of the spring, a time of renewal, and the fleeting nature of life.

Branches spout white flames
fanned by wind to scent the air
with hope’s sweet essence
Author unknown

In the crescent known as the Boltons, a couple of nannies are watching their charges collect some waxy magnolia petals which have fallen from a tree. The small boy presents the girl with a carefully assembled bouquet of waxy petals. She takes it unsmiling, then tosses it away, the petals falling back to the grey slabs. The boy looks stunned. The girl bends to collect her own posy, which she does carelessly. The boy meanwhile searches for the rejected petals on the pavement slabs. His nanny calls to him. He ignores the call, his face furrowed in concentration. His nanny, calls, ‘Ben, Benny, ‘Benny, come on’. The girl, now in her cargo bike looks at the small boy her face a mix of contempt and impatience. Finally Benny is taken by the hand and placed inside the other cargo bike. The nannies ride off side by side along the empty street, laughing and chatting. Benny’s eyes strain around the hood of the bike, fixed upon the big magnolia trees.

Cherry blossoms signify a time of renewal along with the fleeting nature of life. The Japanese for cherry blossom is sakura (桜) . The word is derived from saku 咲, which means to bloom. as well as meaning, to smile or laugh.

They blossom, and then
We gaze and then the blooms
Scatter, and then….
Onitsura

I ride across the river and into Battersea park, where thanks to the generosity of the governor of Nara province in Japan, 40 pale-flowered Yoshino cherry trees form a diagonal line across a large swathe of grass. The petals are lightly tinted like a blush champagne. For a moment or two I have the whole avenue to myself. London is still. Sirens go quiet.

A jogger passes, wearing shorts and a loose jogging top which waves about him as he runs. His legs are whiter than the blossom. He runs awkwardly, he feet slap the ground as he runs down the path. He stops, bends with hands on his knees, his shoulders heaving. He stares down the avenue, letting the blossom calm him, then after catching my eye, he rolls his eyes and with seeming reluctance resumes his jogging down the avenue. Another man, suited and smart, walks down the avenue, talking fast in a foreign tongue, one arm energetically gesticulating. But then he stops, almost mid-stride. He looks up. He says something to his caller, presses the red button and ends the call. He wanders slowly amongst the blossom, slaloming around the trunks of the trees, looking at each arching blossom in turn. Over the next few minutes, others pass and pause. A whiff of a breeze catches the trees. Some petals dance in the air and fall…..

ride the route

Wishing for flowers