Siren of Spring – Escaping from Winter
This time cannot arrive soon enough. Winter has its own personality and it’s a character I struggle to be with. Like a friend whose company I enjoy occasionally, we don’t socialise often. Although beautiful, it can be harsh, unforgiving, dark and cold. I prefer my seasons a touch more forgiving.
Winter is a dark time for me, and not just because the days are short. I find the period between December and March difficult. I’m an outdoors person and I demand sunlight. Energised over the summer months, my batteries recharge. By the time I come up for air in March those cells are dangerously flat, sometimes almost empty.
Some elements of the austere months tempt me out of the dark for a while – perhaps a sunny day when deep blue skies contrast with a crisp, white landscape, and I try to suck every last minuscule portion of pathetic warmth I can discover. Winter is beautiful in its own right, and the countryside shines a different light.
Georgia Hiking Trails Map Photo Gallery
But, the closer I creep to spring, the further up from the depths I swim, reaching for the surface with outstretched arms until I break the barrier and heave in a delicious lungful of the new season.
This is my time and I drink it. I’ll take more than my fair share, devouring until full and then more. Anticipating the next few months, it starts right now. Blink and you will miss what is happening; the seasons pause for no-one. Each day I see the changes and the subtle progress. The wild garlic poking through musty soil, then a week later the broad leaves have matured, shining and signalling with a delicious aroma. Primrose flowers, absent but primed one day, then sporting closed buds bursting with enthusiasm the next, until a week later yellow splatters the woods. An artist’s palette yearning for contrast. Bluebells will oblige the harmony in a few weeks, one of my favourite sights of spring. A brazen carpet of such unique colour – I never experience the same hue anywhere else.
