At the violet hour?

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Funny how I always misquote Eliot's opening line to myself: I tend to think of the violets which grow out of seemingly dead ground at this time of year. Today on Loch Striven there were great swathes of them along the verge, as well as tiny bright clusters like the ones in this photo. There were also multitudes of primroses and huge banks of acid yellow gorse - two contrasting yellows which couldn't have been more different.

Loch Striven is magical in spring. There are pheasants everywhere, the wee dowdy females pursued by strutting males in all their glossy greens and reds, emitting these startling croaks which sound almost mechanical in origin. Long-legged waders with curved beaks stalked the water's edge, and an oyster-catcher revved up to his penetrating see-saw squawk.

And because it is the school holidays here, there were people - some on foot, but even more in cars, resolutely driving to the road's end and back again: each one giving us two chances to dive for the verge and watch to see if they acknowledged us.

And I walked along trying to remember bits of The Waste Land and thinking of the waste of trying to teach me to appreciate it at Uni. I'd do a great deal better now - even if I do substitute violets for lilacs!

The cruellest month

My title today comes with the photo, taken on a hillside above the mouth of Glen Massan: the first violets of the season. Once more my phone has been unable to replicate their particular shade of violet; the white balance is set at "automatic" and I would welcome comment on what to do about it. But yesterday felt quite cruel, mainly because I was at a committee meeting which reminded me how much I dislike meetings.

We've come a long way, have we not, from a society in which we expect meetings to be conducted in code - a code which, I have to say, I associate with predominantly male gatherings. I'm thinking of obfuscation masquerading as politeness, or discretion, or perhaps plain old paternalism. Situations in which nobody questions directly, or admits to not seeing any sense in a course of action, lest they be seen as stupid or troublemakers or both. I don't know anything at all about the world of business, a traditionally male-orientated world where women are now a force to be reckoned with: is there still a tendency for the "don't you worry your pretty little head about that" to creep in?

However, I do know about the church. The Pisky church in particular. Goodness, how we've changed in the 30-odd years since I first served on the now-defunct Provincial Synod. There are still dark glimpses of attitudes which belong to another age - attitudes to women which remain untouched by modern thought - but the joy comes when I realise they are no longer typical. It's when they surface under my nose that I grow fierce. Maybe April is a good month for growth - and not just of violets.