I know January seemed to last for ever. It always does. I’ve never understood why some months have five weeks and others only four. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have the same number of weeks per month and perhaps have thirteen months a year? On the plus side, it does mean February will fly by, bringing us into March and the start of that wonderful season, Spring.
The link takes you to a site which explains the historical reasons for the months as we know them, but I still think it is bizarre you can have five Sundays in some months and others get the “bog standard” four! To my mind, something hasn’t been “divvied up” properly.
Clock Changing
And don’t get me started on the clocks changing again in March… I wish we picked on one time to use and stayed with it. (I’m also all for those further north to have their own time zone here too where I can see the clock change might benefit them directly). Incidentally am I the only one who ends up changing the clock in the car last of all? A case of out of sight and out of mind there I think.
There was a lovely Facebook cartoon on that topic which said that for cooker clocks, you needed a Masters in Electronics to change the hours. For Stonehenge, you needed heavy haulage (well it is thought it was related to time as one theory for its existence was it was a rudimentary calendar), and for car radios, you may as well wait six months, it wasn’t worth the effort of changing it!
Having said that, the one positive thing about altering the clocks is it confirms spring is with us and I do enjoy the lighter evenings. Lady does too.
Signs of Spring with us now
Meanwhile, there are signs of spring approaching all over the place so it is nice not to have to wait until the official time in March to get there. I have a few snowdrops out and I can see the daffodils emerging. Going out and about with Lady gives me ample chance to spot the local flowers and it was lovely last week to spot my first primrose and crocus.
There is something about spring flowers that cheers me up no end. I’ve also noted the evenings being lighter for that little bit longer each night. As dog walks often happen in the evenings, this is particularly noticeable and proves to be a good boost to the spirits (and that boost will be sharpened by the clock change so I guess there is that to it too). You really do sense winter is on its way out. To be fair, we do need all of the seasons though I think winter is probably the least favourite of them all.
Gardeners and the Spring
I would imagine gardeners have mixed feelings about spring. On the plus side there’s all those lovely flowers coming out. There’s plenty to be planted out in the spring ready for later in the year too (and that’s about the sum of my gardening knowledge I’m afraid!). But the lawn will need mowing, the weeding will seem like a constant task, and so on. So lots of lovely things here then but also an awful lot of hard work! Winter in some ways must come as a respite to the gardener.
Spring – a Time for New Beginnings?
But as well as the physical season of spring, there is the metaphorical one too. We associate spring with new life and rightly so. Well, a new life can mean all sorts of things. There’s a literal sense in welcoming new members into the family (human or in our case with Lady two years ago the furry variety!).
It can mean a new career or new developments within it. It can mean moving house and starting life again in a new one, possibly a new area altogether.
I also like to think of spring as being an opportunity to bring fresh vigour to whatever it is you already do. There is something invigorating about the lighter evenings and better weather. (I say the latter with a slight smile as I draft this on the eve before Storm Ciara (!) but I am anticipating we will get better weather!).
Come the spring, I hope I will know more about when exactly my second book, Tripping the Flash Fantastic, will be published and then it will be a case of arranging book events. I hope to host some events locally but also plan to have some online. I will then be in the interesting position of having two books to “look after” and promote as and when I can. You can’t know a reader will come to you and your works at Book 1. The likelihood is they won’t and that increases the more books you have out. So you still need to promote Book 1, Book 2 etc. It is going to become a balance of which I promote when. To begin with my focus will have to be on the new book of course.
I’m also working on a major non-fiction project which I hope to have drafted by the middle of the year. It’s a new direction for me but it is an interesting thing to work on and I hope will prove to be useful to others.
Spring is a period of rapid growth then in terms of the natural world but it can be a time of growth and development for us too. The important thing I think is to have fun with what you do here. What you enjoy doing, you can sustain. This is why it is vital for any creative types to love what they do. For writers that love helps so much when all you seem to get in the inbox are rejections, or there are rotten reviews on Amazon for your beloved book etc.
There is something about the increased levels of light that inspires creativity I think. This must be partly due to that light makes us all feel better and there are proven links between the lack of light and depression.
And of course I’m sure many of us will be looking ahead to holiday time too! I hope Spring 2020 proves to be a healthy, happy, and productive time for us all. I’m sure it will be for The Chameleons as they will have a Spring Quartet of plays out for us to enjoy later. I like the sound of a Spring Quartet. It has a charm to it but then, of course, so does the season itself.
And how better to finish than with the best musical tribute to spring I can think of…
Related Posts:-
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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There are no seasons in the tropics, I was told. But there are. It is spring, summer and autumn every day. A binocular scan of the trees from our balcony shows some in full bloom, some with mature and ripe fruit and some with fresh leaves. There are two midsummer days per annum, on the days of our equinox but day length varies hardly at all as Sri Lanka is 7 degrees N of the equator.
We miss flowers, there are few of them. One garden nearby makes an effort to grow roses but they are poor things compared with ours but nice to see. We do have fruit and nuts in abundance, bananas, coconut, papaya, avocado, cashews, limes but no oranges.
A very desirable residential area here is called Primrose Hill. A friend who lives there asked me what a primrose is. He stayed with us in the UK last year and I was able to show him.
Many thanks, Mike. Mind you, I think it be said there are times we have the four seasons in one day here in the UK. I’ve been holidaying in Scotland where in the space of a few hours there has been snow, rain, winds, sunshine, calmer breezes! Love the sound of Primrose Hill. Primroses are so lovely, I hope your friend liked them too.