Picnic on Juniper Top

A picnic today to meet up with a friend and have a look to see if there were still bluebells in our favourite woodland, at the top of Juniper Hill (near Box Hill, for those in the area). There were, though they were beginning to go over. Still, the wood was completely full of bluebells, as far as the eye could see. They never photograph that well, though, between the dappled light in the woods and the purpley blue colour.  This photo is not bad, as these things go, but they still look more bright blue than they do in person, where this little photo is a much nearer representative of the colour...

There were other plants, too. Too early for orchids, but there was May Blossom (Hawthorn)

and an apple tree still in blossom (late for that, but perhaps being up so high on the hill, it's a bit later...)

There was also some tree climbing - can you spot the climber here? The closeup photos of climbers were a bit out of focus, so I didn't put them up!

And tree branch posing (this was about 3 feet off the ground - not quite so impressive). Too bad a small boy had to make a face!

The trees in general were lovely, with new leaf, so you could still see lots of branches through them, and sky beyond...

I've posted this picnic and walk totally out of order, as here's a photo of us (well, not me) trudging up the hill with our feast, which we sat down to eat before we walked through the wood...

I made a stromboli

and some asparagus (new season, hurrah!) wrapped in parma ham, with Hollandaise Sauce for dipping.

The rest of the picnic was bought goodies - and we'll be eating them again tomorrow, as there were lots of leftovers, both ours and our friend's (she lives alone, so often pressed her leftover bits and pieces on us when we picnic together). 

Not everyone wanted to be photographed...