I don’t know what it is… the unusually snowy winter we had? the fact that life seems to be balancing itself? but for some reason I feel totally delirious with the scents, sounds and sights of Spring. I feel like dancing a jig and while raising my face to the sun, waiting at the bus stop, I had to stop myself from singing loudly along to my iPod (Mapaputsi is still some of my favourite driving and dancing music).

I am used to the continuous flowering of plants in South Africa, and very little distinction between the seasons, but here you understand WHY the plants want to burst into yellows and pinks and blues. They’ve been stuck underground for months and months, in the gloom, in the dark, in the cold, and now is the time to emerge, to run wild, to shed layers of heavy coats and boots and haul out the flip flops. Ok, so I have run wild with metaphor, and it isn’t quite flip-flop worthy weather yet (for me anyway), but you get the picture. The world seems full of glorious miracles and anything is possible.
When I was in Junior school, we had to learn and recite poems and I have had a snippet of one of them stuck in my head for the last week.
Old C Louis Leipoldt knew what it was all about:
“Al die veld is vrolik,
Al die voelitjies sing,
Al die kriekies kriek daar buite,
Elke sprinkaan spring”
(Lente, deur C Louis Leipoldt)
(I would translate it but it just sounds silly).
Happy spring!