Spring!

It arrived last week.

First the crocus pushed its lone head out of the packed earth in my front garden and stood there, white and trembling. It cast no shadow. It kept its petals tightly closed, as if huddling against the cold. It should have waited. A few days later a watery ray of sunlight lit up a primrose, pink with excitement at being the first to bloom. The forsythia, not to be outdone, forced its flowers open and gold ran up and down the branches while violets, admirative, nodded tiny heads.

The sun finally gathered its strength and sent us a balmy week, which encouraged the grass to new heights and stirred the birds to song. Auguste has been chasing his nemesis - the wren - every morning at dawn as he runs out to pee...The wren teases him mercilessly, hopping just out of reach.

It's spring, and it means that every sunny day is torture to be inside, because spring is so fragile and the weather can slide back to winter at a whim. Teeshirts bunch beneath sweaters, coats hesitate on shoulders, and shorts are shaken out and inspected for moth holes.

And every cloud is a curse while blue skies promise - spring is here, and it will stay.