On the cusp of Spring

and why this year, I'm needing spring more than usual.

Hello, I’m Rachel. I write about nature and creativity to encourage connection and wellbeing. This is one of my regular posts about noticing nature and finding connection. To read more - go to my homepage and click the noticing nature tab.

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I have been wintering this season, not in the manner of a cute dormouse, but often frustratingly horizontal in quiet rooms. For reasons known and unknown, I’ve had one of the worst Me/Long Covid flare-ups I’ve had in a very long time. As a result, I’ve not been a shining example of my own advice. I have not embraced and enjoyed winter, I have wished it away wanting colour and light in my days. The light is only just starting to return to my little north facing urban garden, so rather than being a balm and refuge, is a slippery dark mess shouting at me to sort it out. Flare ups are much easier to bear when I can sit in the light and chat with the flowers and insects. Yes, I have the wild cemetery two minutes walk and the South Downs five minutes drive, but some days even that has been too far. My next garden will be south/west facing and have been planned with all seasons in mind, but that doesn’t help me now. I realise how much getting outside, trips to the mountains, ski holidays and regular winter swimming used to help me through the winter.

Balancing mental wellbeing and physical needs is a tightrope walk. Some days I have got out, driven the sea, to the orchard, because my mental wellbeing needed to take priority, even if that then meant an afternoon crashed out asleep in a darkened room.

But, as the days have lengthened and green shoots are forcing their way out of the ground, I am (fingers crossed) coming back to life too. There are now some days without naps, times I can handle a couple of hours tapping the laptop and I’ve even managed to swish some paint around (more on that in another post). The hope I feel from the signs of spring is growing alongside the hope that I am gaining in energy.

Cherry plum blossom in the orchard

So this is a rather long introduction to the little outing Bridget Dog and I had to the Community Orchard yesterday. I wasn’t feeling full of beans, I needed to retain energy for doing admin, but Bridget needed a walk and I needed nature.

It was the perfect medicine - sniffs for her, tiny wonders for me. A top up of hope that Spring and therefore light and colour, is coming. Saturday heralds the start of meteorological spring and it’s light(ish) at 6pm (on the south coast of UK).

There were a couple of trees already displaying their white embellishments, with others just having a light sprinkling of white hundreds and thousands. Give it a couple of weeks though and I’ll be dreaming up all sorts of similes and metaphors for blossom filled hedgerows.

The Hazels however were stealing all the limelight as usual, requiring detours off the trodden path (which Bridget does not approve of) to investigate their delights.

Fluffy male catkins with their pink anemone like female flowers above.

Since I learnt about the female flowers a couple of years ago, all Hazel trees have had to be investigated each Spring. But this time, it was the male catkins that captured my attention. With all my attention on the pink anemone like females, I’d dismissed them as dowdy sideshows. But look! Peeking out from under each scale (the little flap bit) is the little greeny-yellow stamen ready to release its pollen to the wind. (with thanks to the Tree Guide website for giving me the technical terms).

Next, a diversion off our usual route to the orchard pond, time to cross my fingers - would there be any…?

Can you see it? Frogspawn!!

Yes!! My first frogspawn of the year and the first I’ve seen in the orchard for a couple of years. I have been eagerly but slightly enviously watching

Kate Bradbury

’s frog updates from her trailcam and texting my Step Mum as to whether they have appeared in her pond. So it was a joy filled moment to see this clump and add it to the Pondnet spawn survey. I will keep checking and report back on progress!

Another first of the year was almost missed in our hurry to get into the main orchard. Next to the path, in danger of being trampled was a small patch of violets. These demand phone gymnastics and much juggling of dog leads to photograph, actually getting down to be able to smell them wasn’t going to happen.

Sweet violet - possibly.

Thankfully, a quick internet search and attempting to sniff a flower only a few centimetres off the ground is no longer essential for identification (only sweet violets have a scent). This excellent website and close study of the other photos I took and I think, probably, these were Sweet Violet (rounded sepals and self coloured spurs if you’re interested). Either way, another dose of colour, and even better - purple - one of my favourite colours.

And, to round off a short but joy filled, nervous system calming trip a couple of reminders that winter can still offer up its own wonders.

A hemisphere of tiny cups and alien like protrusions - Lichen on a fruit tree and Jelly Ear Fungi on a Hawthorn.

Just writing about this little outing has brought a second burst of happiness, such is the joy of nature noticing and spring watching. The memory and hope for Spring that I’ve held onto for weeks will soon be a reality. I know a lot of people talk about the lack of light, or the rain and cold affecting them the most in winter, but for me, this year, it’s the lack of colour and access to nature which have affected me the most. Spring is not going to cure me, I may still be spending time in bed not able to finish a page of a book, but it will bring colour, light and a nicer garden to sit in.

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What signs of spring have you noticed? What are you looking forward to most?

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Until next time,