Vernal

With the arrival of the equinox we have somehow stumbled into spring, despite the weather hesitating between warm sunshine and bleakly grey showers. Random flowers are bravely showing their faces, the grass no doubt thinking seriously about growing. The garden, what there is of it, is looking rather faded and untidy, almost as if no one has bothered to tend it since last summer.

I ought to do more with the garden. In my defence, there is not much space to work with, but people with skill and interest in these matters manage to work miracles with plots the size of shoe boxes, so that really is no excuse. More of an excuse is my lack of imagination, my inability to conjure up a vision of how I would like it to look, and then have the enthusiasm for rolling up my sleeves and doing something about it. I tell myself I am leaving Nature to take its course: left unfettered, it may decide to flourish into a lush tropical Eden, or, more radically, transform into a weed-infested wilderness; who am I to get in the way? Seeing that the garden mostly consists of gravel, it actually hardly changes at all when you hand it over to the ravages of time and the forces of Nature: gravel seems so intrinsically unchanging, even after you kick it around a bit. Unlike flowers.