spring chicksI awoke this morning to the sound of torrential rain battering down upon my attic windows splittering and pattering, wind howling.

I lay there for a while and glanced at mobile phone, it was 4:48am. It's difficult to express in words how relaxing it was to just lay there knowing that I didn't have to get up for another 42 minutes or so. The world, as it always is was alive and wild, yet strangely I felt quietened within its whirling ferocity, snug warm and dry beneath the pane, wrapped within my duvet.

This it turns out, kinda set the tone for the day. It got me thinking about the elements our seasons, the power it exerts, how remarkably insignificant we all are in its thrall. We can't stop the earth from moving in its timeless elipse, we cannot affect the pull of the sun, the path of the moon, we are all bound by the clockwork rhythms of life, tick tocking onwards to some time indefinable.

So here I am some 4 or so hours later, having just managed to sit down and grab a cup of tea. The rain has eased off and the Sun is now shining.

Spring is almost upon us. (Yay!)

It officially starts on the 20th March.

blackbirdJust the other day, well last week in fact, I heard a blackbird singing in a tree; it was 6pm of a Tuesday evening. I distinctly recall feeling some inner cheer, almost a message reverberating within calling from some inate long forgotten internal signalling system. It actually gladdened my soul I distinctly recall thinking, yes excellent.The thought of passing winter, lighter days, warmth, life renewed, dormant bulbs slowing pushing upward, birds out gathering and feathering their nests for their young to come, the sprouting blossoms, the pink and white littered pavements, happier people.

England loves you springtime, we all look forward to your coming.