Spring is Coming
Can you feel it? There’s a tingle in the air.
The daffodils have been brightening up my pots for a while now and I know that soon they will be nodding their lovely yellow heads all the way to Haverfordwest and beyond. The churchyard and nearby gardens at Manor Owen are fast becoming a gorgeous carpet of white snowdrops and the crocuses, always so delicate, are splashing drops of colour here and there to let us know…spring is coming.
When I was younger, I loved the closed-in feeling of winter. I wrapped it around me like a blanket, relishing the early dark and late morning light. I loved walking my dogs in the early morning dark and snuggled myself into the warmth of nights in front of the fire with a sound background of wind and rain.
As I have aged, I have often found the winter a chore at best. At worst it has felt like an almost endless trip to the underworld, to be endured as best one can without going quite bonkers.
I used to find the spring a bit too much – a full-on assault on the senses. All that promiscuous life rushing to wiggle itself into every possible space.
These days, I love it. I can almost taste the awakening. The fizz and crackle are in my tired bones and it seems that all living beings are feeling it too. The birds are more twittery, the lizards and slow worms thinking of creeping out to warm themselves, and the toads are stretching in their hiding places and dreaming of searching for water.
When I used to have a garden, instead of a bit of wilderness at the back – about which a friend’s child once gasped: “Oh, mummy, Kitty has the Amazon jungle here” – and my assorted pots on the terrace overlooking the sea, I knew it was coming to pruning time for most climbing plants. I had a white wisteria (I always wanted a purple one) climbing roses, jasmine, buddleia all requiring some attention.
I was never very good at getting seeds such as sweet peas planted in a warm indoor place in time, usually resorting to buying the spindly little seedlings from the garden centre later in the year, but I was always keen to plant bulbs that would flower in the full bright summer.
The bees are still sleeping now, though on unseasonably warm days, I see the occasional one confused by the brightness of the day and I will it not to go into the conservatory where I find so many of their bodies when it gets truly hot.
All in all, I am quite a happy bunny, looking out over Fishguard bay on a sunny, warmer than yesterday early afternoon. Who knows what is in store, but rest assured, whatever else may assail us, spring is most definitely in the air.
