The fountain is tinkling away again after a winter of silence. The toads are clumsily lurking around the pond and the Brimstone butterflies float around the garden. The sun, when you see it, has some warmth again. Shoulders, which were permanently hunched against the cold when outdoors, can now drop down and a cup of coffee outdoors is a joy, rather than an anti-frostbite device.
I love the spring. I love the hope that it brings, the promise that life goes on and the eternal optimism of new shoots rising up to the sun. Of the colour coming back into the garden, of catkins, furled leaves and primroses – but most of all I love the return of the bees.
I know they never left, of course, but as the sun warms their furry bodies, they appear in the garden again and the sound of their buzzing is like music. The garden in winter is so quiet. There are birds flit and squabble on the feeders, but it’s the insects that brings a garden to life. The gentle hum and buzz as you weed and dig, the constant movement on the flowers, the industry of pollen collection – it all reminds you that life goes on, if only we let it.
In spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
Margaret Atwood, from ‘Bluebeard’s Egg’
The promise of new life and hope in the spring is personified by my dad. He is 93 and still cultivates his huge vegetable garden all by himself. Recently horses have been grazing on the field behind his house. He has befriended the owner and now barrows large loads of manure to a heap he is building in a corner of his garden. He cannot put it on to his vegetables until it has rotten down and so, my 93 year old dad is waiting until he is at least 95 to use the manure he has stacked up. Now that is optimism and the promise of more springs to come.
I know it’s not the classic dream come true scenario, but my one wish this spring is that my dad gets to fulfil his wish of barrowing mature horse manure onto his garden when he is 95.
Norfolk Notes 