Ostara

Finally spring is bursting out all over. I walk to work every day and one of the great pleasures of doing so is that you really get to watch the changing of the seasons over the same landscape. It may seem bizarre to say so in these demystified, secular times but there is still something very magical about the spring. Whilst we know it's going to happen, that all of a sudden nature unfolds verdant growth everywhere she can get a foothold (including the guttering outside my room I noticed this morning) never ceases to delight and amaze me.

This year in London where we have had a dull, wet winter, never particularly cold, no snow worthy of the name and little but low cloud has led to a bit of a malaise, and thus the regeneration feels even more special this year than perhaps it has in the past where we've had what I would term a "proper" winter. The other aspect that astounds is the speed at which it all happens. Perhaps being mammals we're hard-wired to think of the speed at which things grow in in animalistic terms, but the sheer rate of plant growth - it almost seems to happen before your very eyes. One of the horse chestnut trees I walk past in the park had leaf buds on it last Friday. Today it was in almost full leaf, quite breath-taking and undoubtedly very, very beautiful. And the new growth is that lush, young green hue, unburnt by the sun, undirtied by the city air and bursting with life. It won't last of course but it does go to show that the more we know and understand does not affect our ability to be awed by nature and her fecundity.

PS I know it's a bit late to be mentioning Ostara in connection with all this but I like the word too much not to use it on the few legitimate occasions I get.