It has felt like it was a long time coming and then it seems to have happened all at once. February was both long (the final last yards of the winter slog), but at the same time a full 72 hours shorter than both of the months which bookend it (January and March). As I write this, the sun is shining outside of the window, my youngest has just called me from the north east of England to tell me what a beautiful day it is in her university town (she sounds more well than she has done for weeks) and I am just back from a short visit to my middle one, who is studying much further south) where crocuses, daffodils and narcissi were blooming everywhere.
As well as being in the north west, my own garden is north-facing and the flowers are always slower to bloom, but my camellias definitely have buds, the snowdrops are out and the other bulbs are showing promise. It’s still cold, around seven degrees apparently, and I’m wrapping my hands around my tea cup, but the sunshine makes it seem less cold and, more importantly, my spirits feel somewhat lifted.
I hope like me you are feeling a little more energised. March promises to be a fairly quiet month for me, with less work than I have had over the last few weeks, but I am hoping to make the most of that time with some spring cleaning of my much neglected house, some gardening and lots of reading. I am a bit stuck with my current book, Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips, about which I was so hopeful but which I am struggling to get through. I have just completed Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger: A trip into the mirror world which is brilliant and has left me with a list of ‘must reads’ and ‘must watch’ films, YouTube clips and television shows! I highly recommend the book, which won the Women’s Prize for Non-fiction last year, and will post my review of it soon.
After my wonderful trip to Venice I have a small stack of books which I bought from the secondhand website World of Books, which I am eager to dive into, coffee table books about the palazzos, and writers’ memoirs of the city.
What is so striking about spring is the sense of hope I find I have suddenly – about all the cleaning and tidying I’m going to get through, about all the books I’m going to read, the yoga classes I am going to attend and the general sense of order I am going to bring to my life! Well, that is what it is to be human I think, to be hopeful and to keep striving!
So, Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus to everyone especially anyone out there with Welsh connections – what brilliant thinking to have your saint’s day on the first day of meteorological spring – and apologies if I have misspelt that. Happy reading, planting, spring cleaning, travelling or whatever it is you will be doing with your March.
Julia's books 