Midway through February and the rain has come my way, here in Lewes, UK.  It might get a guy down, damp feet and water down the back of the neck,  but, somehow, when the bulbs are stirring , I don’t feel too miserable.

It’s St David’s Day and therefore it’s opening time for daffodils in these parts. The croci have started too, just as the snowdrops are on the turn.  It’s definitely the beginning of the gardening season here, so watch this space to see how my small urban garden grows this year.

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There’s a lot of yellow out there through my window. When the sun is shining too, I’m truly convinced that my garden is wishing us all a Happy Easter with a golden burst of daffodils just as the latest tea cosy,  a wonderfully vivid yellow from my mother’s inventive brain,  goes on display in the kitchen. Yellow is definitely the colour for this weekend. So Happy Easter to all Wolfie’s readers.

So there you are, yellow. Here’s a yellow song too. Happy Easter, everyone.

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It’s been difficult to feel gloomy on a day like today here in Lewes, UK. It might be raining elsewhere in England and worse in the USA but here the sun is shining and my garden has become a joyful scene painted in yellow and purple.

I know it’s still a long way to Spring but, come on, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved into a spirit of optimism on such a day.

Daffodils arrive with a particular glory ringing out the new season from their trumpets.

No wonder William Wordsworth celebrated them in Romanticism’s most famous flower poem.

No wonder either that that most Romantic of composers, Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856) spent much of February 1841 writing his joyful Spring Symphony in response to his marriage in 1840 to his lover and muse, Clara Wieck (1819 – 1896).

So if you’re not lucky enough to have your own Spring flowers yet, you can at least listen to the song-like slow movement from this symphony. Why not lie back on that Wordsworthian couch and let your heart dance with the daffodils. Well, do whatever takes your fancy but enjoy the moment.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

from Daffodils (1802) by William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)

Here’s a suitably youthful and romantic version of the larghetto movement from Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 38 (Spring) played by The Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by the brilliant Canadian conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin:

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STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love

The post Nearly Spring here in Lewes – Romantics know just how to celebrate it. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

There was unusual weather here in Lewes, UK, for my Spring flowers, poor things.

After being covered in snow, they gradually reappeared.

And now they just need some sunshine. Well done indomitable spirits!

The post The snow on my Spring flowers brings out their innate gutsiness. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

My first daffodil of the year started to flower yesterday here in my small Lewes town garden. It looks a sad but plucky little thing on a sunny but cold February day but it is not entirely alone.

The snowdrops are still going strong and there are plenty of signs of flowers to come in the surge of green.

This unusual variety of snowdrop, I think it is Swiss, came in a small batch I bought decades ago. Just one plant survived in the urn that I have moved with me over the years but, this year, well thrillingly for me if no one else, I have a new addition. I’m hoping that next year I will get even more new ones. I have always loved its chunky grey/green leaves and its extra large blooms that dangle satisfyingly pendulously beneath steely stems.

Not that my rare snowdrops detract from the other, more common varieties. The delicate upright type may be more familiar but it has a purity and perky freshness that speaks to me of bravery in adversity.

My single daffodil is not the only yellow out there because the winter flowering jasmine is still going strong as are the two urns of primroses that started to flower in December. Winter flowers have a special place in my affections arriving as they do when all my hopes and resolutions for the year ahead are at their most optimistic. If they can look so cheerful at this time of year, well, then so should I.

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Miniature daffodils, grape hyacinths, light blue chionodoxa and primroses plus a lot of new bulb foliage and sunshine – Springtime in my Lewes garden.

As if that isn’t enough to put a contented smile on your face, here is a Spring Song (1842) from the pen of that most optimistic of composers, the happily named Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). It is an arrangement of his piano piece of the same name and one of Queen Victoria’s favourites:

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On a calm and sunny spring-like morning here in my small town garden in Lewes, Southern England, the beauty and tranquillity of my early spring flowers are a thought-provoking reminder of the very different situation on the other side of the globe in Japan.

Japanese culture puts great emphasis on the beauty of flowers so, I look at mine, I am thinking of parts of their country that has now been so rudely crushed by earthquake and tsunami.  Here, eerily, there is not even the slightest of breezes. If only everywhere else in the world was so calm.

Japan Tsunami Appeal | British Red Cross
www.redcross.org.uk
Please make a donation to the Japan Tsunami Appeal to help those affected.

http://www.redcross.org.uk/japantsunami/?approachcode=68861_blogjapan

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More significantly maybe, if less romantic, March The First is the day, every year, when I water my cacti after their six month drought. I have always withdrawn watering from them on 1st October every year and left them dry until today when I try to emulate one of those desert rain storms drenching the cracked earth with my small green watering can. From now until the end of September, I will water the cacti once a week, every Thursday in fact. I hope that doesn’t sound too pedantic.

The other exciting sign of Spring growth is the sight of scaffolding poles going up across the road at what was Ron’s shop. The sudden blossoming of what has been a sadly derelict place will be just as thrilling as a  whole host of golden daffodils.

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