 
Gorgeous GarlicThursday 13th April 2000
  IT HAS HARDLY let off raining for three days. On a grey afternoon in Ossett's pedestrian precinct a Greenfinch perched at the top of an amenity tree sings clear trills, rounded off by nasal wheezes. A promise of something brighter, as are the holiday bargains and tropical fruits displayed in the adjacent shops. 
The wood has a tropical look too. The stream is brown and swollen. The lush growth of Wild Garlic gleams in the rain like a clump of bromliads in the rain forest.
Another form of wild garlic is now in flower; Garlic Mustard or Jack by the Hedge, Alliaria petoilata, although so far there are only a couple of plants in flower, growing against a south-facing drystone wall.
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Creeping Soft Grass has transformed the slope beneath the Oaks from worn and patchy to lush green. Raindrops sparkle on the leaves and, as you walk past the banking, the green changes from bright yellowish to cool bluish as the view changes from top to underside of the grass blades.