About Spring

“Spring has sprung, the grass has ris,
I wonder where them birdies is.

The little birds is on the wing.
Ain’t that absurd, the little wings is on the bird.”

There is nothing quite like that moment of a first real spring day when suddenly it’s warm enough to sit outside. The sun and light fill me with energy and I notice how many plants are sprouting and budding. Thus it was on an unexpected free Thursday before Easter walking in the park at la Hulpe and having lunch on the café terrace.
Instead of thinking, “oh, it’s spring again I must be a year older” I actually feel younger, the youthful sap rising in me too.

Two weeks later, returning from Easter away in Italy and ski-touring in the still snow-covered Alps, I find the garden has burst forth in a riot of colour: the bulbs, yellow daffodils, red and yellow tulips, blue and purple hyacinths wafting their scent onto the terrace; the cherry tree in full white blossom, the forsythia yellow; the pansies resuming robustness; the grass pushing up long; and the weeds too; the clematis putting out new growth - and yet, taking stock, other things not, the lavatera for example has not survived the repeated frosts of this long and hard winter.
Spring is a time for new projects too. Having said I never would a couple of years ago, I now doggedly re-cement the dodgy bits of the garden wall and repaint it. It becomes an obsessive passtime but a wonderful opportunity to be outside in the now light evenings after work. The resulting brilliant white in the sunshine gives a satisfying freshness providing an ideal backdrop to the new plant growth.

Still the mornings are cold and gloves are required to cycle to work, layers are later stripped off progressively through the day. It’s all very gradual, a perpetual balancing act as to just how thick clothes to wear and how long to have the heating on. Yet the outlook is decidedly forward and we hatch plans. Soon the forest will turn green. There will be walks in the Ardennes with picnics outside and wild flowers. Spring is also a wonderful time to travel, short breaks away in the numerous long weekends granted in May when we really will be in full Spring.
Spring the season of freshness and hope.
How sad it would be not to have seasons.

So too, there may be a flourish of new activity on this blog. It has been dormant for a while as over the winter a lot of my spare time has been devoted to redecorating our house where we have now been for twenty years and where the last repaint was a decade ago. Although I have not done any of that painting myself the sheer preparatory shifting of clutter from A to B and back to A afterwards has been monumental, like moving home in your own house. With that behind me it indeed feels doubly like Spring and a time for new activities and fresh opportunities.

Yes, Spring has sprung.