Seasonal Ghosts

There are days in every season which are ghosts of the season gone or the season to come; after days of gloom the sun is shining faintly this afternoon and it is warm enough to try some gardening, which feels like summer. Grass cutting, repotting, dusting, cleaning, watering. And coming in from the garden, a faint echo of holidays on the stairs; a smell of damp, old dust, shuttered rooms, faint incense. I doubt we will get away this year but such moments are good for the soul.

And the landscape is changing. The daffodils are fading back, the snowdrops are long gone. The hedge-banks are full of creamy yellow primroses and the woods are starting to show drifts of celandines, wood anemones, even bluebells. The paddock behind the house is full of daisies; and the grass here has stubborn dandelions in it. The fields too are waking up. After a month of Zen ploughing - neat, regular, rigid and unintentionally ornamental - the fields are starting to soften with new growth and large patches of acid yellow oilseed rape are starting to flower. A vivid, Van Gogh quality to these slices of sharp, sour colour; the fields resemble a patchwork of browns and these aggressive green-yellows.

And we are starting to see bees.