Spring Is Busting Out All Over …Or Not! …

Good Morning All

 

It’s officially. Today is the first day of spring! Spring has sprung! And as soon as the frost lifts – I may actually believe it. I was still slipping and sliding my way up to the chucks at 6.00 am this morning and the lock on their cage door was still frozen. But, I am nothing if not optimistic. This cold spell can’t last for much longer, can it?

Any day now the ‘boys’ will be back in town. Frogs of all shapes and sizes will arrive at the fish pond. Every year they toil and squeeze through netting placed around the garden perimeter to keep the chucks in. The pond will almost bubble with activity. And they aren’t choosy in their sex-craved actions. It wouldn’t be the first time a disillusioned frog has attached itself to the head of an ancient goldfish, digging its probing fingers into the poor creature’s eyes and holding it nose down in the water. And it takes me ages to release it with the net – without harming one or the other.

It has been a long winter this year. Isn’t it the same length every year I hear you ask? Well yes it is, of course, but this wintry weather started early, back in October and it is now March.  I’ve just realised I’m writing about the weather! We English tend to do that – talk about the weather. I think it is often the forerunner to ‘proper’ conversation. Not that you are ever really going to ‘hear’ much proper conversation here! As I have said many times before there are hundreds of proper, intelligent blogs out there, you really don’t need another one.

Richard came up with a purler the other night. I was sitting watching Emmerdale with Chea tucked under my chin having a cuddle and such and he looked up from his … no, not Land Rover mag, his Biker mag and emotionally announced, ‘You’ve enhanced the lives of so many animals in your lifetime.’

I glanced across at him.

‘You have,’ he continued. ‘Every animal that ever came your way has been loved and treated like royalty. You have a special way with them. It’s like you know what they are thinking.’

I glanced across again. And then came the punch line.

‘It’s a shame you’re not the same with people.’

I think at that point we both fell silent before breaking into giggles. It was either that or throw the cat at him, which frankly would have dispelled the theory.

Today is not only the first day of spring – it is the day on which my dear father would have been celebrating his ninetieth birthday. I have been without him in my life for six years now. And quite a lot has happened in that time. The sad part is I can’t tell him about any of it. In my father’s later years, after mum died and he was alone, I used to pop in every afternoon and we’d have a cup of tea together and sit in front of the fire and dad would relive his memories, telling me about his life in the navy, the war and such like. A bit like Uncle Albert in Only Fools And Horses. He’d tell me how he met mum. What a ‘looker’ she’d been.’ And it’s funny but sitting there with him back then I never imagined what my life would be without him. We don’t though, do we? Envisage our loved ones gone?

I shall pop to the church when Richard gets home and take dad some flowers. The sodding frost will probably kill them within twenty-four hours, but at least, for that time, they will stand proud in the weak sunshine and silently announce that here is a man gone but not forgotten.

The photo I have added today is a picture of my dad, on his pony, taken eighty-five years ago.

I’ll end today on that slightly nostalgic note.

 

Take care my lovelies x