Spring is in the Air

I may not be the most perceptive sort but these last couple of days my deductive skills have led me to believe that it may be starting to get a little bit on the chilly side. Now, I don’t mean that nice refreshing type of countryside chilly that induces the average middle aged, middle class man to declare he’s going out for a nice bracing walk and is quickly eradicated by a hot mug of Bovril, I mean the seriously five-thermal-layer penetrating, past teeth-chattering kind of chilly that can turn a sturdy Yorkshireman into a six foot two inch ice sculpture and close six dozen primary schools in little more than a jiffy. It’s seriously cold. (A little too cold for a southern softy like me, thank you very much.) Still, even cold snaps have their plus points and this one has refreshingly, and helpfully for my blog, got me thinking about two disparate things.

The first is a small pondering about trying to keep warm. I went out for a lovely walk with my wife and our three month old yesterday and thoughts about staying warm were conjured up by seeing D snuggled up in a baby carrier, oblivious to the cold weather around him, as he cuddled into my wife’s chest. Why can’t we all walk around like that? I thought. (I don’t mean snuggled into my wife’s chest, as nice as that is, I mean all obliviously toasty and warm.) So, I started to struggle to find a satisfying solution to my little conundrum but couldn’t seem to get very far. I flirted with the idea of trying to train a warm cuddly bear to carry me around in a giant man-harness but quickly realised the prospect was hampered by all kinds of difficulties. It would have to be a vegetarian bear for a start: I couldn’t have it munching on me – or the average Bournemouth Saturday shopper for that matter – if it suddenly felt a bit peckish. There’s also the obvious steering issue. How do you get a giant muscle bound fur rug to go where you want it to? Honey on a stick? I really don’t know. I’m also struggling to figure out where I’d keep one? The spare room’s slightly too small, and I rather like it as a study at the moment, and the front room’s always full of washing. So, you won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve decided to delay the patent application for the time being, at least until the idea’s a little more refined.

The second thought that popped into my head is about that mystical time when pollen count, temperature, day length and bud-to-blossom ratio all align to send the deepest, darkest part of your heart resonating with what can only accurately be described as ‘the spring feeling’. It hasn’t quite come yet but it’s on its way and when it does appear it ushers in such an overwhelming sense of joy that I can feel a quivering frisson of anticipation just thinking about it. It really is a wonderful time of year, and one made all the better for having had a nice bit of real winter just before it.

So, two currently fruitless and slightly random thoughts, but thoughts all the same. The good thing is we’re not living in some kind of bizarre dragon-infested alternate reality where evil forces are threatening to envelope us in a dystopian future of perpetual winter. Spring will come, just not quite as early as we were all expecting. So, 'the spring feeling' is temporarily pending and we probably won't have an immediate need for walking bear jackets just yet. All the same, I do hope by next week it will have perked up a bit.

Wrap up warm everyone and have a Bovril on me.