The promise of spring

I've always liked spring - with the sense of hope and vitality that it brings. This year it seems to me that spring lasted a long time (which is a good thing). The first snowdrops appeared in our garden in late January, and as I write we still have a crop of daffodils mixed in with our tulips and other things. The herbaceous plants that died off last autumn are unfurling their leaves, and generally things look not too bad.

That is, it doesn't look too bad if you look at the garden with a positive disposition. This brings me back to my theme of optimism and pessimism. Pessimistically, there are weeds sprouting everywhere, the lawn is mainly moss, the veg patches are weeks behind schedule, compost corner needs some serious attention etc, etc.

This year that's not the picture that sticks in my mind. Now I see the curled up hosta leaves preparing to spread and amaze; I see the dogwood coming into flower for the first time since we planted it; I see the ornamental bed that we planted up last year really taking shape; I see the rampant rhubarb; and also the berries beginning to form on the blackcurrant bushes (must remember to net them soon, before the birds have a feast!).

What has changed? To be honest, the garden hasn't changed much - it's always a mixture of fruitfulness and the promise of ever more hard work; order and mess; achievement and disaster. I think I'm looking at it in a different way. This is the first spring that I've had my new camera, so I'm literally looking at life through a different lens. It's the first year that I've been blogging, so I'm looking at things from another perspective. But I think that the real change is summed up by Lins' comment on, my recent post. I'm trying to be more positive in outlook.

Aye, I know, I can still be as grumpy as the grumpiest person in grumpy-land; and as cycnical as the most cynical person in cynic city, but I'm trying to look for the positive in every situation.

With this in mind, I was delighted to find this in an e-mail that I received recently:

Why does spring have such a powerful attraction? This may, of course, be mainly a feature of seasons in the earth’s temperate zones. Yet it does speak of resurrection, new life, regeneration and renewal, of the dormant brought out into exuberant life. And our delight in spring is a delight in a new earth washed clean, a promise of a new heaven and a new earth that will be both glorious and familiar. And also, I hope, a delight in love! Praise him!

- Margaret Killingray (LICC)

As a kind of celebration, I'm going to post some more spring photos over the next week or so - some from our garden, some from walks - all from this year. I've started with my favourite daffodil (don't know what it's called) from our garden.