Some mild weather, a light spring shower and some sunshine and look what happens in my small Lewes garden. Yes, it’s camellia time again and this the first bloom is at its most seductive when its blushing red is sprinkled with rain drops. It will be a hard act for my others flowers to follow – perfection doesn’t come along this way too often.
Rich colours are particularly welcome in early Spring when we are spoiled by various shades of daffodil yellow so I value the luxuriantly shining purple of my Remembrance croci.
I still have some snowdrops and a couple of daffodils have begun to open but centre-stage, this week, belongs to my camellia and her little purple attendants.
Centre-stage that is until I remember, as I do every year at this time, (use search window for Lady Of The Camellias) the tragically consumptive original Lady of the Camellias who inspired not just Alexandre Dumas fils but also Verdi’s la Traviata but also this wonderful ballet choreographed by Val Canipardi and starring Lucia Laccarra and Cyril Pierre. The music is by that other tragically consumptive artist, Frederic Chopin – the wonderfully limpid Larghetto from his first piano concerto. Here is a performance worthy of my exquisite camellia.