A Million Reasons for Wanting to Carry on Living

"The shortest day has passed, and whatever nastiness of weather we may look forward to in January and February, at least we notice that the days are getting longer. Minute by minute they lengthen out. It takes some weeks before we become aware of the change. It is imperceptible even as the growth of a child, as you watch it day by day, until the moment comes when with a start of delighted surprise we realise that we can stay out of doors in a twilight lasting for another quarter of a precious hour."

                       ---------- Vita Sackville West

A westerly wind arrives just in time for the weekend the clock spring forward bringing tiny things you thought you’d forgotten; being able to dry clothes on the line or walk sit round the house without need for jumpers or GCH. Temperateness. Mildness and moderation make me feel very English and patriotic. I love Spring. I could live forever within it without the heathaze of Summer.

I know we have climate change and all that, but really how can there be snow if it's 9 degrees C? That makes no sense whatsoever. Talking of which, what the hell are these animals supposed to be? They look like turkeys gone very very wrong.

In order to speed Spring along, I post this song by the very lovely Nolan Chance (Motown-y soul, 2.4MB)

I hate this weather; I do, I do. Crocuses are forming, the daffodils are nearly out, it’s light at 6 o’clock: it shouldn’t be this bone-chillingly cold anymore, with worse predictions to come. Fuck it all, I’m giving up, I’m moving to Spain. I’m going to buy the Daily Mail, I’m going to start complaining about black people committing crime, I’m going to claim my cold weather payments and my British pension and manage not to pay tax in either country. I shall eschew patatas bravas for egg ‘n’ chips and find a pub that sells John Smiths. I’ll go to places that put on a decent tribute act of an evening. I’m gonna shout loudly in public and make out that things weren’t so bad when I was young and now we’re all going to hell in a handbasket and it’s all the fault of bureaucracy, the EU, Muslims and political correctness. I'm going to tell my children that I’m spending their inheritance (which is actually the inheritance that my parents saved so hard to leave).

I’ll do it all, I will - just for the sake of A LITTLE BIT OF HEAT. Until the summer comes. Over 25°C and I start to wilt.

Dramatic weather this week.