The first week of May is when I expect to see the woodland floor transformed into a dense carpet of blue and this rainy year has been no exception.  Even though the first of the bluebells started to appear as early as a month ago, which came as a bit of a surprise, it has only been in the past few days that they have really come into their zenith and the flashes of blue between trees – as though applied by the sweep of a paintbrush –  have been driving me to distraction on car journeys when I’ve been unable to stop to take pictures.

Based on previous years’ experience, I expected to find the best of them in South Oxfordshire and took some photos there the other day but it was this display at The Vyne in Hampshire that had me filling a memory card with a zillion shots. As the newly unfurled leaves are still almost acid-green, the combination of colours makes for a spectacular woodland scene – one of the reasons why this has to be my favourite month of the year.