Ode to (Pestiferous) Spring

Oh, Springy-Spring, how I love you! Especially when you stop raining on me, or trying to blow me into the next suburb with your equinoctial gales.

I was very good this morning and did all my inside chores, and drove the children places before I bounced out into your irresistible sunshine, there to discover anew how very much I love and adore you.

I love how you have generously dedaubed the lemon trees with scale, and some kind of fungal virus with your incessant spring showers. I adore the marvellous variety of exotic weeds you have mischievously planted in my lawn, and the onion weed you have threaded like jewels through the garden beds.

I love the generous spirit which prompted you to invite Jasmine and Ivy in from next door, all eager to hug and embrace the poor, lonely little blueberry plant...

And that brackish pool of muddy water outside the back door that won't go away, the one with the slime that I slip over in amusingly at least once a week? Oh, Spring, you are such a wag!

And something else I admire? Your persistence, and dedication to go where no spring has ever gone before. The red chard, that hearty, hardy plant, the only one in the garden which is never attacked by bugs or blasted by blight, thought it could get away with its rude health, but no, my Spring, you have triumphed. Is it a viral rust, or some hitherto unknown-in-this-garden tiny bug? Whatever it is, my admiration and respect know no bounds.

Thankyou, dear Spring, for your bounteous gifts, and delightful, daily surprises. I can hardly bear it that you are nearly half over...