The Shining

Honesty - photograph by Jo Sinclair

Even Chris Evans on Radio 2 was talking about it: luminescence. England in May. Sap and sunshine. Heatwave afternoons and days and days of downpours produce a green growth-spurt so quick it trips itself up. The best box of crayons or felt tips I coveted as a kid, or today's computer palette of tiny coloured squares could never compare to these greens. Sunshine doesn't pour through computer pixels and illuminate foliage like stained glass windows in quite the same way.

Green hits the spot more than a sea view, I mused as I sat eating a Cromer crab for lunch the other day. I was looking out at the swirling browns, greys and blues of the North Sea. I'd been doing a lot of driving through some of England's blander landscapes in East Anglia and the Midlands, but occasionally had the pleasure of going through a tunnel of woodland that put the month of May into a kaleidoscope and made me sigh wow.

A cuckoo was calling in one place I stopped. I was talking to a lucky resident in a village surrounded by broad-leaved woodland, breckland, pasture and river, and my eyes were wide with dismay. He was telling me about all the wildlife there - and how much of it ended up in the jaws of his cat, a rare breed with aquatic habits. "A kingfisher, a water rail, a sand lizard...". I pictured a cartoon of a drenched feline with sharp teeth and spiteful eyes, all things bright and beautiful snuffed out and hanging discoloured in its jaw. The man assured me his pet was "the only soft-mouthed cat I've known".

Chelsea Flower Show popped up for its 101st year. A reminder that people crave green. Studies show that having a potted plant at an office workstation improves productivity. Perhaps everyone needs re-wilding. There's a distinct trend for wildflowers and weeds in gardens going on. When I lived in London May felt wasted to me, like diamonds in a bank vault. But then I discovered a meadow of ox-eye daisies by the ponds in Regents Park, Nash Terrace and BT Tower in the background and I was happy enough. You can get those moments that make you sigh wow even in a metropolis. The other day I was sitting in a rural garden beside a pond. One minute of sitting still was rewarded by a kingfisher perching in front of me, catching a fish and flying over me in an arc. But I'd seen the same thing in the concrete watercourse of Deptford Creek in London many years ago, while packing t-shirts in a warehouse.

Urban graffiti - Photograph by Jo Sinclair