By Maria Strutz

Thursday afternoon I stepped outside into bright sunshine, and the ground was white, and it looked as if it had snowed quite heavily. Looking more closely I noticed that the white consisted of individual hailstones, lots of them, and it surprised me that they had ‘stayed’ and hadn’t immediately melted away. It was May after all…

I decided to go to Albion Millenium Green and found the paths of the Green covered thickly in white hailstones, surrounded by borders of bright green blackberry leaves and young ivy, gleaming in sunlight.

And it felt somehow surreal, a sparkling icy path surrounded by a border of  bright green on each side, as if signifiers of winter and spring were meeting.

I had hoped that the labyrinth would be covered in white as well. Which was not the case, with only a few remnants left on the edges of the paths, most of the hail had already melted away.

There was still some whiteness on the area next to the labyrinth, on the (former) meadow leading to the orchard, but the moisture was evaporating rapidly. The earth was covered in a shifting haze, fingers of writhing mist undulating between the green oak trees, rising upwards.

It was ethereal, bizarre and beautiful.

I met an acquaintance who lives in Albion Villas Road, and we chatted about the otherworldliness of the spectral mist, and ended up being quite silly. Which was nice.