It’s spring! And ‘British Summer Time’ begins

Ah, the joys of March. My calendar for this month contained two of my favourite phrases, announcing the Vernal Equinox, last weekend, and the start of ‘British Summer Time’ this weekend.

British Summer Time really just refers to an alteration in the clocks, which need to go forward an hour. I usually spend the day half in ‘old time’, with the old-style non-digital clocks in the house still not adjusted to this new reality of ‘British Summer Time’ having begun, because two of them, on walls, involve getting a ladder out to reach them.

It’s Easter Sunday too, and it started out looking like ‘British Summer Time’ might be on its way, with sunshine and cheeriness out there. I started tidying the shed. And thought about how I remember one Easter Sunday with snow on the ground and watching my neighbours make a snowman in their garden. I wondered if I’d mis-remembered that. But then, late afternoon, Easter Sunday and British Summer Time delivered a sudden deluge of hailstones. I’d been thinking I might go for a walk towards town. I was glad I hadn’t, and ran in from the garden as small lumps of ice landed on the garden paths.

But still, it really is spring now, and the signs of it are everywhere, despite the weather. That Vernal Equinox saw me out in the garden for many hours, thankful for the light and the change and the growth.

Much work has been done this month, far more than I was able to do when spring arrived in the last couple of years. This year I’m properly there, working and watching, and seeing bright points of green appearing on the trees, just like I used to. Well, not quite the same. Many things have changed. But out there it’s the same rhythm, doing its thing. And with this year’s crop of forget-me-nots.