Tag: spring

Springing forward

There was a real feeling of spring in the air last weekend.

Bees were buzzing, birds sang their little hearts out and everything in the garden looked really lovely. Even the Spanish bluebells were giving it their all, their last hurrah and not realising I was about to dig out the interloping blighters.

In the house, the rays lit up the the dust on the inside of the windows and drew attention to cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. But, to be honest, no-one cared.

It’s amazing what a few days of sunshine can do to uplift the soul, especially at the weekend when more people can enjoy it. Children were playing, building dens, families were out en masse, with big smiles on their faces.

This week, the weather’s been a mixed bag but it’s looking a bit better next week.

Which is great news, because the clocks go forward an hour on Sunday, giving us another hour of daylight in the evening.

No more huddling round the fire and binge watching Landman. It’s time for country walks with the dogs, going down to the beach at West Bay and just enjoying being outside without the heavens opening and grey skies threatening to dampen our spirits.

So remember when you go to bed on Saturday night to put your clock forward an hour.

Can’t wait!

Have a great weekend.

Love, Maddie x

Bouncing into spring

When does spring begin?

It’s so confusing, even when you look it up, because there are different ‘types’ of spring – meteorological spring, astronomical spring and even phenological spring. Who knew?

Meteorological spring is already here. It began on 1 March, following the tried and tested formula of three months per season – so December, January and February are winter months, March, April and May are in spring…and so on.

It makes sense and is easy to remember.

But the date of astronomical spring changes slightly each year due to the orbit of Earth around the Sun. This year the spring equinox is tomorrow – Friday, 20 March, when the night and day are of equal length.

EDIT! I’ve just seen this on a new BBC story: In the UK, 12 hours of daylight and night time comes a few days before the equinox – the equilux. Here’s the link.

As if we’re not confused enough already!

But, in a previous article, the BBC points out: you may also want to consider phenology – the behaviour of plants and animals in response to the changing weather and climate – as another marker for the start of spring.

And, to cap it all, the clocks spring forward an hour on the last Sunday in March, meaning that British summer time begins.

Spring, summer, shrug of the shoulders, I don’t think any of mind too much as long as the weather is better and the days are longer.

So a happy spring equinox to you all – here’s to a positive adjustment to our internal equilibrium.

That’s about it.

Love, Maddie x

The world is just a great big onion

There is a spring onion on the path to the church.

I’m not sure how it got there but maybe it’s a sign of spring.

I have visions of it having fallen from someone’s rustic basket as they made their way back from the community shop.

Maybe it made a break for freedom in a sort of stop-motion animation in the style of The Herbs, the children’s television programme by Michael Bond and starring Parsley the Lion, Dill the Dog, the rather fat feathery owl called Sage and those cheeky little Chives belonging to Mr and Mrs Onion, along with a bunch of other herbal characters.

In this episode, the Chives catch a cold.

And to think as children we were captivated by this show. Still, it helped me know my onions (and herbs) and I can still sing the song pertaining to each character.

I’m Dill the Dog, I’m a dog called Dill…though my tail I’d love to get, I’ve never caught it yet!

I’m Bayleaf, I’m the gardener, I work from early dawn, you’ll find me sweeping up the leaves and tidying the lawn…

I’m Constable Knapweed, and I keep law and order. I watch to see that all is well along the garden border.

The spring onion on the path to the church is silent though, probably embarrassed at being named after a season which can’t make up its mind if it’s coming or going.

It was fine earlier this week but now it looks like we’re back to winter again.

I fully expect to find winter greens waltzing along the path the next time I go that way.

See you later in the week.

Love, Maddie x

* The world is just a great big onion / And hate and fear are the spices that make you cry, oh, baby / And the only way to get rid of this great big onion / Is to plant love seeds until it dies, uh huh (woo!)

Mr Blue Sky

The sun came out yesterday.

It was such a momentous sight and feeling – that blue sky, the light bringing pizzazz to the flower border and the warmth chilling even the coldest of hearts.

The daffodils seemed to be laughing with joy. The hellebores were positively gloating.

The roses said ‘prune me, prune me!’ and I managed to fill up the garden waste bin with ease.

The dogs chased each other round the garden and then lay, exhausted, on the chippings on the path, Edgar popping up only when he thought I might have a biscuit to share (I didn’t).

And, then, today, we’re back to normal, with grey skies, driving drizzle and worldwide horrors taking centre stage.

It’s the kind of Sunday- in this part of deepest Dorset at least – to listen to the gentle tunes of Cerys Matthews and Guy Garvey on BBC 6 Music.

Ian Dury’s just struck up Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, which has to be a good sign.

According to the weekly weather forecast, Wednesday’s looking promising.

In the meantime, I’m putting off putting away the winter woollies to make way for the palette of spring, which was one of my jobs today. It just seems too soon.

Anyway, have a great week.

Love, Maddie

Fade to grey

Earlier this week, it felt like spring had sprung.

But now it’s recoiled and we’re back to winter again.

Slightly warmer, milder, but drizzly rain and grey, grey skies.

I’ve always been surprised that grey seems to be an on-trend colour for interior design and fashionable for work suits. Is it still? If so, I have no idea why.

For me, grey equals dull. It summons visions in my head of concrete tower blocks on a wet day, tarmac roads awash with surface water hiding potholes the size of Brazil.

Grey is the colour of unhealthy pallour, ashtrays, taps, the ubiquitous ‘silver’ of most people’s cars and knitting needles.

But, then again, I have streaks of grey at my temples which some people would pay good money to have put into their hair. And I’ve just bought a White Stuff grey gilet in a sale which goes perfectly with pink and maroon and is the antidote to feeling cold in the house.

So, horses for courses – and grey mares at that. Spring will suddenly arrive and bask us all in its beauty and we’ll forget what all the fuss was about.

This week, I’ve been mostly filling in grant application forms (grey-ish), putting off a major editing job (far too grey), going to a matinee of Hamnet at the local cinema (surrounded by grey-haired people), attending a meeting about an exciting exhibition (red) coming to a town near me and watching the deeply disturbing Channel 4 docudrama, Dirty Business (definitely my colour of brown, but not in a good way). If this doesn’t shake up the water industry like ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office then nothing will.

Uncomfortable viewing. No shades of grey in this series, all very black and white, and told and acted in a way which the audience can follow easily but with increasing dismay and anger. The scale of the scandal of untreated sewage pumped knowingly into our rivers and oceans is monumental, especially when set against the fact that profits come before public health.

Dirty business indeed.

And still it goes on. Something must be done.

I’m not sure how I got from grey to the devastatingly beautiful Hamnet and then to sewage pollution, but that’s my week so far. How about yours?