This has certainly been a week of contrasts – I started the week with a damp walk along Hollingside Lane in Durham and finished it, on Easter Sunday, making dinosaur biscuits and pizza in Chengdu with a certain small boy, who loves getting messy with dough…

When we left home, the Poplar trees which host a small flock of starlings were starting to green up and finally hide the this year’s nests in the rookery.  A pair of Goldfinches flitted backwards and forwards across the path on my early run and I spotted the first White dead-nettle I’ve seen in flower this year. Blackthorn blossom has definitely taken over from Cherry plum in the hedgerows now and we spotted the first oilseed rape of the year in flower around Grantham, as we headed south on the train. I suspect by the time we return home, in a fortnight, the landscape will have been transformed to full spring glory.

We woke in Chengdu on Thursday morning to sunshine and the sound of parakeets in the trees around Ed and Kate’s apartment block.  A walk to nearby Tazishan Park, where I spent lots of time with Casper in September, seemed like enough travelling for the day; even in this busy park in central Chengdu there are wild plants and animals to see. There is the occasional white Egret fishing in the Shahe river, lots of chattering Sparrows and raucous White-browed Laughingthrushes (Pterorhinus sannio) in the trees and plenty of butterflies enjoying the flowers, both ornamental and weedy.  We found a pond behind the tea house with a single fish and two large toads, and Casper was very excited to spot one or two tiny tadpoles which had survived the fish’s attention. His language skills in both English and Mandarin are coming on apace and I’m fascinated by the fact that he consistently uses English to Martyn and me and Mandarin to his mum. In Daci Temple, which we visited on Friday, he can now shout, “I catch” loudly as he runs after the Spotted doves; as if we hadn’t guessed his intent! Puddles are also a huge favourite…  The one difficulty he has is that Grandma and Grandpa are much more difficult words for him to distinguish than their Chinese equivalents, Ni-Ni and Ye-Ye so he’s taken to pointing at the person whose attention he wants and saying, “This one”. We feel a little like ‘Thing 1’ and ‘Thing 2’ in The Cat in the Hat!

I’m enjoying the Ginkgo trees everywhere coming more into leaf by the day and am intrigued by how many of the weedy species on our walks along the river are similar to those at home – wild strawberries with yellow flowers, buttercups, Toadflax and Speedwell, as well as lots of yellow and white Asteraceae.

Our first trip to Chengdu Botanical Gardens on Saturday was a revelation – the gardens make Kew look positively quiet!The areas of formal garden are very highly manicured and the bedding plants so ‘perfect’ they look almost artificial – something only achievable with vast amounts of cheap labour, I suspect. Lots of girls and women wearing beautiful dresses were enjoying the many photo opportunities offered by blossom trees but Casper and Kate’s friend’s daughter were more interested in running around at top speed on the uneven paths, keeping us on our toes. 

Much of the garden is not very pushchair-friendly so Martyn and I sloped off to wander through an attractive glade of ferns and cycads, taking us on a journey through plant evolutionary history. The beautiful Bluebottle Swallowtail butterflies nectaring everywhere were a highlight, as was seeing Bird of Paradise flowers growing en masse and looking much more like birds than I’ve noticed before. They are odd looking flowers, with their three orange sepals and electric blue petals – native to S. Africa, but looking right at home here.

By some weird serendipity, we ate dinner on Saturday in a noodle restaurant in central Chengdu where Kate and her friend used to eat lunch together on work days. It turned out to be directly opposite the Bo Bo Ji restaurant where we ate in on my very first night in China, in April 2019, and just round the corner from the AirBnB where we stayed! Maybe Kate and her friend had commented on the weird wàiguórén eating there long before she and Ed actually met!

My culinary highlight this week was definitely the lunch we had at Daci temple, in central Chengdu.   The skewered tofu skin was so good that Martyn didn’t initially believe it was vegetarian, the smoked tofu was more like smoked cheese in its intensity and the battered deep-fried oyster mushrooms were to die for. And then there were the roasted peppers, fried dumplings and cold noodles…

I’ve had the luxury of more time than usual for reading this week and am enjoying both a paperback, and an e-book on my phone when jetlag kicks in.  Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton, is a thriller set in New Zealand which hinges on the interaction between an eco-activist collective and a billionaire wanting to exploit mineral resources – much less worthy than it sounds!  The Rising Tide, by Ann Cleaves, has her usual strong sense of place and makes me think we should take Ed and Kate to Holy Island when they visit in the summer.