The First Wash of Spring

11 April 1996

Everybody has different definitions of the seasons -- the quarterings of the year.

Yesterday I recognised with a quickening of the blood that it was the first of March -- spring!

Oh, I know we'll have two or three wintry blasts between now and mid-May. but all the same I think, with the last day of February, 'That's an end of winter!' ... And as you get older, to have broken through into another springtime is a triumph.

The snowdrops have been around for weeks, and the first crocuses are showing, and it won't be long till daffodil time.

In fact, 'those flowers made of light' are brightening many a boreal house as I write.

I was given a bowl of daffodil bulbs for my birthday in October, and instructed to keep them in the dark, in the cupboard under the stairs.

I quite forgot about them in the depths of winter.

But one morning, when I went to get firewood in the cupboard, there were a few pale shoots poking out. Another few days, and they were higher and greener, and more of them.

So then I was told to bring them into the warmth of the living-room, and water them more often.

They responded at once, like a fountain of greenness, rising higher every morning. And there they were, the future flowers, like furled yellow umbrellas.

The first daffodil opened, with a soundless shout of joy.

Then they came out like stars, jostling and leaping, one after the other...