Spring is here at last, and more welcome than usual this year as we start leaving behind the winter of lockdown. Our planet has been damaged by our activities and neglect but still the spring sings in all its colours, lifting spirits, bringing hope for us and hope for it. We need to change our patterns that are causing so many problems, but we need to be undergirded by hope, hope and the reminder of beauty that awaits.

Violets

The sun shines, I come. I sit in the gentle air, in the waiting warmth, in the bowl of blue and am welcomed into spring. Spring, and holiday. It is still and timeless like memories of summer. The birdsong is all encompassing, no longer in the background it fills centre stage with murmuring, cooing, and sharp, sweet trilling. The trees are opening their arms to the sun and you can sense the surge in them as buds are fed ready to burst with green. They are swelling from the grey bark like remembered dreams, ready but not rushing.

It is the daffodils that cheer the heart, even when the sun is slow to show. How wonderful that the first colours of spring are the colours of sun, so bright against the lawn, just-mown for the season. Daffodils, celandines and primroses, and yellow mahonia blossom, just opening to release its scent.

But there is more. Scattered through my garden are wild violets, dark purple hiding from first sight, and white and mauve too, the only flower in the rainbow. There is something thrilling about noticing the presence of something I haven’t planted, like a gift, like angels visiting unawares. We take it for granted that weeds blow in, but here is a bounty of beauty I didn’t expect.

It’s so easy to notice the weeds along our way, and they will always be there. But scattered between in cushions of colour are violets – nature’s gift.