It probably sounds weird, but I have never been one of those people who swoons over spring.
I love summer - warm nights and wine in the garden - and I'm quite happy with autumn and winter's dark nights, candles, fires and woolly jumpers.
Of course, it's cheering to see the snowdrops and daffs springing up, and all that. But what I object to about spring is that it's still so cold and miserable, most years, all the way through to May. I've known it to snow and hail in April and I suspect the north-east UK is a little behind the rest of the country when it comes to blooms and blossoms and birdsong.
So for me, spring has never quite done what it says on the tin.
However.
This week I learned of the death of an old friend and colleague from my days at the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. We'd fallen out of touch in recent years, as she moved around to different places to live. But others who were in contact did not even know Clare was ill. Back in our younger days, we'd shared many raucous and wine-fuelled nights and I danced at her wedding. In my head, she was still aged around thirty, smart and funny and beautiful. News of her death came, as they say, out of a clear blue spring sky.
I remember when my mum began to lose her friends and probably, I wasn't sympathetic enough. When people get older, it's to be expected, I thought. But until now I did not realise: there's something different about losing a contemporary, as opposed to an elderly relative, for instance. It tears at an unexpected place in the heart, taking away a part of your youth and greying some of your nicer memories. And naturally, when someone around your own age dies, you start to speculate about your own position in the queue.
I found myself thinking about that Housman poem in which he realises there are only so many springs to be seen - something I'd always considered a bit mawkish, until now.
So here I am, tidying up as the garden shames me after the usual winter neglect, and admiring nature as the poet would recommend.
The marsh marigolds are rudely yellow and there are tadpoles in the pond, in spite of the resident newts' predilection for snacking on them. My mother's tulips spring up stubbornly, year on year.
I am planting again. The blossom suggests there will be a fine harvest of pears to come.
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