For the past five years, we have lived without having any particular change in the seasons. In Florida, you go from very warm to extremely hot to hurricane and back to warm again. The palm trees never change (if they have survived the hurricanes) and apart from being gilded with twinkling fairy lights over the politically correctly named "Holiday Season" they were always the same. The lush vegetation likewise seldom changed although I suppose there were times when the bouganvillea was brighter than others, but the bottom line was green and lush and unchanging.
Now we are here in the Languedoc, we are awaiting our first Spring with great anticipation. Any spray of yellow broom or "genets" as it is called here, is spotted and remarked upon. Some of the willow tree limbs have started turning a rather strange shade of yellow/orange and we are hoping that this is a fore-runner to the soft green of the first leaves. In the garden, there are a few hesitant grape hyacinths coming into flower and I am under strict instructions from a gardening friend that the blooms should be pulled out and NOT cut if I want to have some in the house.
The mimosa is making a hesitant appearance, and I recall that in South Africa, this was a definite sign of winter coming to an end, but it also heralded the arrival of the strong winds that would whirl the pollen up everyones noses along with an awful lot of dust. I never minded, because that mimosa pollen was the most evocative scent and even as I sneezed, I knew that it meant that cold days and frosty nights were just about over.
Having arrived here on the 14th July last year, just as the weather turned really hot, it is hard to imagine what the gentle onset of heat will be like. I want to sit out in the courtyard and read my newspaper or potter about in the garden and feel the sun on the back of my neck. I want to put away my pink furry slippers and haul out my flip-flops and do away with my long sleeved vests and dig out the t-shirts.
"En Avril ne te decouvre pas d'un fils". Translated, this means "Cast n'er a clout till April is out". So patience must be my watchword, and I will ensure that for the time being, my top drawer is full of freshly laundered clouts while keeping an eye out for the almond blossom.
