Spring!

After a false start in February with about one day of warm, fine weather before it turned first wet and then much colder again, this time it seems to be here for real.  Not quite warm yet, but about a week now of borderline T-shirt weather when out in the sun (of which there is now plenty).

Yesterday just walking over Whitchurch Down to Lidl, the real signs of spring were all around.  A lady of pensionable age sitting out on a park bench to enjoy reading her paper.  The buzz of the bumblebee.  The startling scent of spring blossom after the drab winter months.  Etcetera.

Alas, this reminds me of what we’ve lost.  This year and last we’ve missed our customary early springtime when the once-lovely tree in Paddons Row would blossom gloriously, upwards of a month earlier in the season.  It’s looking very dead, having  borne neither blossom nor leaf as of late.  Could it be the winters?  Or has some human activity cut off its roots, or poisoned them?  Surely a tree that size has seen its fair share of winter, which leaves the perils of its concrete-jungle location as prime suspect.