Spring things

Spring is the real New Year, if you ask me.

The gardening queen herself, Pamela, pottering away in her own garden. Not only are the photos beautiful, the article is most definitely worth a read too.

Every season seems to have its own small catalogue of things that only belong to it. Not the obvious ones we’re always told about, but the quieter details that appear for a few weeks and then slip away again - almost before you’ve properly noticed them.

It’s been nearly a year of writing these (with the occasional hiatus here and there) and its been a process that I’ve surprisingly enjoyed. It’s felt a safe space to be me, so thank you.

So here are a few spring things that I’m looking forward to again:

• The small relief of not needing gloves anymore

• Opening the windows and letting fresh air move through the house

• Leaving the house without checking the weather quite so carefully

• The particular smell of the air after a mild spring rain

• All things rhubarb and gooseberries

• Daffodils in small bunches on the kitchen table

• The first warm afternoon that makes me start daydreaming about summer

• More birdsong in the mornings

• Longer evenings where it’s still light after dinner

• The return of washing drying outside on the line

• That particular golden light that sometimes arrives in late April

• Hawthorn blossom along country lanes

• Switching heavier winter jumpers for lighter ones

• Garden centres filling with trays of seedlings

• The feeling that life is slowly moving outward again - into parks, gardens, and open air

• The gentle sense that the world is waking up again, little by little

• Seeing the bluebells appear in the woods, quietly turning whole stretches of forest floor into violet-blue

• Ducklings and goslings appearing on rivers and ponds

• Planning little adventures for the months ahead - countryside walks, long lunches, trips to the sea

• The first picnic of the year, even if it’s a slightly chilly one

• The quiet excitement of knowing longer days are still to come

• The small anticipation of all the days ahead that haven’t happened yet

• That feeling that the year is slowly beginning again

Spring is the real New Year, if you ask me.

A flower here, a longer, lighter evening there, a field suddenly full of lambs. Individually they’re nothing remarkable. But together they form the quiet rhythm of the season; and before long, you realise spring has arrived and winter is over.

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