The search for spring…

Damn it, I blinked and missed the start of spring. It was yesterday, St David’s Day, mind you it was just another fake. Meteorological spring isn’t the real McCoy, it’s just a mark in time in order to have a nice orderly seasonal world; something just for the met men really. Mind you it was a reasonable day, rain first thing and then a little sunshine. Cold though, really cold, but then we haven’t really had any winter yet which probably explains the snow today.

So when does spring really start? Most people go by the astrological spring that they find in their diaries. That spring is all to do with the position of Earth in relation to the sun, taking into account equinoxes and solstices of course. This year it won’t be for another few weeks and will finish halfway through June, which is summer to my mind anyway.

I keep hearing that the seasons are changing. Well, perhaps they are and perhaps they aren’t, but it does seem like they are all over the place. But are they? Can a season really have a drop dead date? For me spring isn’t a calendar event like Christmas or an astronomical event like an eclipse; it’s a feeling, an experience in the same way that a Van Gogh painting isn’t only about what you see, it’s more about what you feel.

I’ll know that spring is here when I feel the urge to start planting sunflower seeds and getting serious about my tiny backyard garden. I’ll know that spring has come when my bones don’t ache quite as much as they do at the moment. I’ll know it’s arrived when I wake up with a whistle and a smile instead of my grumpy winter face.

Spring will be here when I feel it; it’s as much a state of mind as anything else. I can’t wait for it to get here.