“When the gorse is in flower, kissing’s in season”, says country lore. A walk on the Common will give encouragement, if any is needed. Many bushes have at least one yellow branch. As the sun breaks through for a few hours, after days of pulsating downpours, the air fills with insects that head for these late sources of nectar when there is not much else around. But there is some – a few brambles are still in flower, some promisingly pink in breaking bud, on the same stems as the berries of an earlier flowering, long withered and pulpy. Sprigs of deep mauve bell heather stand out amid the faded remnants of the bright patches seen only a few weeks ago. In a damp depression, a solitary yellow head of lesser spearwort pokes above the surface of the water.
Some of the gorse bushes look well-manicured. They’re rounded and lack sprawling limbs. These have been trimmed by ponies, which find nutritious winter food in the plant. Each spike ends bluntly where it has been nipped off, shorn of that final vicious spine. The ponies often leave these tips on the ground for a few days before eating them. Already future meals are lying around.
The north end of the Common is a scaled-down Lake District. Days of rain have flooded the undulating ground, hollowed out by generations of gravel extraction, leaving large areas of water on the surface. Seen from a distance, they remind one of lakes and meres; looked at more closely, the water is on the move. Those at the higher level spill over to create rills that feed those below, which in turn overflow to form even larger bodies of water lower down.
The ground rises at the southern end of the Common. Trees replace the stands of gorse. Though higher, there is protection here, for the birches have not yet lost all their leaves. They glow in the sunlight, bright fans against the tan bracken on the distant slopes of Ibsley Common, top-framed by leaden skies.
