Stop and smell the spring.

I can't believe how glorious the weather has been this month, I keep expecting the misty mornings to remain and progress into even foggier and damp days, yet the sun has burned it away and left clear and cloudless skies for us to enjoy. As is so much a part of our British psyche, we can't help talking about it and exclaiming at the wondrousness of the weather and how we're revelling in it. On the days when I've been in London the progression of spring is noticeably further advanced; particularly with the flowers and trees, compared to when I'm in Lincolnshire. I love that, it's almost as it I have an extended season, and spring isn't even my favourite month. I have to admit to having great affection for it nevertheless, as its arrival heralds the closure of the winter season and the anticipation of what to me, are the adored summer months. What I can too easily believe is the negativity I've been hearing, along with and comments that "it won't last" or "we're bound to have more snow" and "you can still get frosts into May?" Really, you don't say?! Admittedly it's all true in this country and yet is it really that difficult to be positive and to stop and smell the spring and to enjoy it however fleeting? The warmth we're experiencing now is unlikely to last until the summer and we'll all too soon find ourselves in the middle of the dire weather the doomsayers are predicting. It strikes me that this is a simple metaphor for how many of us find ourselves living our lives today. We are constantly inundated and bombarded with multiple sources of information visually, emotionally and mentally, and we speed through without taking in any of it, in a meaningful way. It reminds me of the visual picture books from my childhood where a story was depicted in a variety of images on separate pages and flicking through rapidly would tell the story. As a child I used to like to stop midway suddenly and look in closer detail at the page in front of me and imagine what was going to happen next in the story. I'm not really that different now, although I have to make a more of a conscious effort to stop the picture and really look at the detail. So this spring I'm going to really stop, get outside and enjoy it. My request is that you do the same.