When I was little, my dad used to recite poetry to me, and this one stuck in my mind
Spring is sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where
The birdies is
The little birds are on the wing
Now ain’t that absoid?
The little wings
Are on the boid!
Apologies for the spelling but I can hear his voice in my mind, and I’m smiling. Because, you see, spring is my favourite season. It means new hope, new plants growing, baby birds and the return of the swallows. I gloat over every single sign that winter is over and, okay, maybe I go a bit over the top with spring flowering bulbs and plants. But could you have resisted 72 plug plant wallflowers for the price of 36 the year before last and 72 sweet Williams for the price of 36 this year? Admittedly, I should probably have thought about where I’d put them all because I’ve only got a little garden, but I like the jammed in look, not least because it means that weeds can’t grow. I do admire colour schemed gardens, but I always remember a quilt class I went on where the lecturer told us that nature never gets it wrong, so all you have to do is look at her combinations and forget complicated stuff like colour wheels.
I’ve been sitting out there and editing this week, so A Vintage Girl Summer, which is the next Windy Bay book will be with you in June. A young heroine, with an old soul, a man rebuilding his life after tragedy, a vintage fair and clothes and lots and lots of cake and seaside… I’m enjoying it and I hope you will too.
I’m also getting ready to write the first draft of the next Amy, and this one’s about the Coronation. Obviously, there’ll be a street party and vintage fair at Swansmere (Vintage Fairs are big down here in Dorset, possibly because, as an unkind chatbot claimed according to the Daily Mail, we’re bumpkins and behind the times! And, which’d probably horrify the journalist, most of us don’t actually care! In fact, we pride ourselves on keeping the good bits of progress and ignoring the not so good bits.)
Surely they can’t find trouble, can they? But a wide variety of protestors are threatening to try to disrupt the coronation, so I think it’s safe to say that they will…
So, I hope you have as much fun this week as I shall and if you haven’t got anything fun planned, then get on and plan something! It doesn’t have to be big or expensive. In fact, in my experience, the best things are neither.
