🌺

Waking this morning to the light filtering in through the curtains and the sound of the birds outside, I could feel the shift in the season almost before I opened my eyes. As I boiled the kettle and rattled the rats’ cages to drop off their breakfast (all waking with an excited start to grab weetabix cubes and carry them off to their four preferred eating corners), the sense of spring and a change in the air filled the house.

Out in the garden, the snowdrops lightly peppered the ground just as they had yesterday, but they stood in altered surroundings somehow, the sunlight playing with their shadows at only 7am and the breeze lighter, full of promise of a spring and summer to come.

I love spring and autumn – those seasons of change and a spiralling cascade of auburn leaves or cherry blossom towards the new – better than the other longer ones of winter and summer, where we find ourselves settled into mainly light or mainly darkness. They are also both wonderful in their own way, but there is nothing like feeling the winds of change in the air and watching life evolve.

The pony was waiting by his stable door, the last of his four stable mates to go out today, and as we wandered he blinked at strong sunlight and stepped into a dryer field, the grass to mud ratio now beginning to turn in our favour.

One of my favourite parts of the day, full of calm and the space to enjoy my surroundings, is the drive to work. This morning – with crocuses and the first few daffodils lining the roadsides, the jagged hills above me glinting in the sunshine and still patchy with snow – it was more beautiful than ever.

Earlier, out in my short sleeves with my coffee cup, packing the car to start another working week, the sun warm so early; I had been surprised to still need to use the last of the kettle’s warmth to slick a thin but persistent layer of ice from the windscreen – winter still hanging around, in its annual tug-of-war with spring.

Yet today, it is clear it is finally loosing its grip; and with the blue skies, the warmth in the air and the birds singing new songs, we are on the cusp of another spring-time at last.