The wind had snapped off an ash twig, so I brought it home and stood it in a jug of water to watch the male and female catkins unfurl.
As I drew, I couldn’t help thinking of Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson, in their roles as Gerald Crich and Gudrun Brangwen in one of the opening scenes of Women in Love, where school inspector Gerald interrupts Gudrun’s botany lesson on catkins.