Here’s a very pink-and-purple selection of pictures to mark the tipping point between long nights and long days (in this hemisphere, at least). There’s yellow out there, but I tend to think of that as belonging earlier in the spring, or maybe a little later, as dandelions replace tired daffodils. Here, now, the rosemary is running riot (and quite right too, with Lady Day next week), and the violets are bringing their own colour, and there are grape hyacinths all over the place, and it’s a lovely day to get the washing out. Overhead, there’s white: plum blossom and cherry blossom (next door’s plums are always ahead of ours, so the show goes on and on).
Some people take today as the first day of spring. I prefer the Celtic calendar, which puts it at the beginning of February. Despite the occasional cognitive dissonance (and wasn’t February miserable this year?) I like it that way: mostly because I can’t be doing with Midsummer Day somehow being the first day of summer. Anyway, I’m in too good a mood to argue today. Today’s it’s definitely spring.
Kathleen Jowitt 