BEWARE! There's March madness around
I have just espied one of the earliest harbingers of spring. It was sitting at my kitchen table eating a hot-cross bun (another early harbinger) and wearing cotton camou age combat trousers in their spring mutation of leaf green and khaki. Could it be? Yes it was; my lesser grey-crested neighbour, Ted.
My favourite spring cliché is the hot-cross bun. Appearing in shops almost directly after Christmas, they never fail to lighten my spirit while adding pounds to my weight. I waved mine in the general direction of Ted’s trousers and said with some delicacy, ‘Do these signify that your thermal paraphernalia has now been stored away?’
‘If you’re talking about my long johns,’ he’d replied, ‘they will remain on an easily accessible shelf in the airing cupboard till Easter.’ There is something about this time of year that seems to inspire a March-to-May madness. Already my brother has dusted o his beaded flip-flops. How can he bear to change overnight, from fur-lined boots and woollen socks to flip-flops?
‘Aren’t your feet cold?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said cheerfully.
‘Then why don’t you put your socks back on?’
‘Because they don’t go with flip-flops.’
I almost understand how he feels. My own pastel-coloured towelling socks, so gratefully relinquished for warmer, sturdier ones in November, are now calling beguilingly from the back of my sock drawer.
Ted, intrigued by the report of my brother’s beaded flip-flops enquired, ‘Where would you get a pair of those?’
‘Gran Canaria?’
‘Really?’
He raised one eyebrow as if Gran Canaria was an easily accessible shoe shop in the shopping precinct.
All winter I’ve been content to appear pale and interesting. I’ve imagined that my complexion was not dissimilar to Julie Christie’s Lara in the film Doctor Zhivago, ideal for peeking charmingly from the depth of a faux-fur snood. Suddenly I yearned to be tanned, toned and tousled. The type of woman who lopes barefooted along a shoreline, a romping saluki at her heels.
In my local post office, Pearl the postmistress was displaying an admirable tanned cleavage. ‘A book of firstclass stamps, please,’ I said. ‘Are you just back from a holiday in the Med?’
‘No dear,’ she replied. ‘I’m using Bronzing Beads. Want a receipt?’
I took my receipt and made a mental note to investigate Bronzing Beads at the earliest opportunity.
Surely I can’t be the only person who wakes up one morning in late March, sun streaming through the window, to find themselves dissatisfied? I dislike the very pyjamas I’m standing up in, while wondering what possessed me to buy flannelette bed linen during that bitterly cold spell. Downstairs I hate my ethnic cushions bought the previous year for their warm, autumnal colours. Suddenly they look so… warm and autumnal. Even my cats seem inappropriate to the time of year.
For months, Boysie, Tommy Thomson and the obnoxious Lettuce have been lounging on my sofas but overnight they’ve become unwelcome winter accessories. I want them gambolling outside (I wouldn’t even mind if they turned into new-born lambs), sniffing burgeoning plant life, pollen sticking to their whiskers.
I need to reclaim my sofas. Brighten them up with newly purchased, fresh floral cushions. I shall add bowls of narcissi to kitchen table, coffee table and occasional table. My windows must sparkle and I must become reattached to my Hoover attachments.
‘What pretty cushions,’ my friends will say. ‘Just love the smell of your lavender furniture polish.’ And they’ll have that sort of glaze in their eyes as if they’re slightly dazzled. Without realising, they will be in the presence of spring, almost as real as if they were standing in a newly sprouting corn field, with a mild breeze ruffling their hair.
‘Just a few little touches to herald in the gentle season,’ I’ll murmur. ‘If you could sit lightly on my sofas or even remain standing.’
Recently, on the lookout for a mid-season jacket, I visited an out-of-town shopping centre. From the freezing, wind-whipped car park I followed a group of young women who wore little apart from brightly coloured scraps of material and orange tans, into a mega-sized Boots in the hope that they’d lead me to the Bronzing Beads. They were only buying sandwiches, but suddenly my search for the mid-season jacket seemed the dullest search since my friend Deirdre mislaid her spandex bionic gardening gloves with neoprene wrist support.
I was ready to strip off, not put on. Wasn’t it almost summer?
I went home with a pair of turquoise jeggings, a plunge-fronted, no-shouldered T-shirt, and a bikini. ‘Whatever possessed you?’ Deirdre asked.
‘When will you wear that bikini?’
‘I shall book a holiday abroad immediately.’
‘Wouldn’t it be more economical to return it to the chain store you bought it from?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Exchange those jeggings for a pair of useful linen trousers and sew up the shoulders of the T-shirt and add a modesty panel at the front?’
‘Point taken and ignored, Deirdre,’ I said.
Ted, still at my kitchen table, said, ‘We’d better get a move on with our runner beans.’
‘There’s no “we” about it,’ I replied. ‘You can get a move on with your runner beans. I shall sort mine out later.’
‘Later in the week?’
‘No, later in the year.’
Every spring, under Ted’s urging, I’ve planted runner beans, French beans, broad beans and courgettes, in pots on my windowsills. By April the beans are up to the ceiling, with courgette tendrils winding around the legs of my kitchen table and chairs. The room resembles a scene from The Day Of The Triffids.
‘Get ’em to the allotment,’ Ted advises. ‘They’ll be fine.’
Without fail, it rains, snows or blows a gale for the next month. Every plant shivers, withers, then dies.
‘I’m starting my vegetables this weekend,’ Ted says firmly.
‘I’m waiting for a sign,’ I tell him.
‘What sign would that be?’
I tap the side of my nose, ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out.’
Always You, Edina by VG Lee, is published by Ward Wood Publishing, priced £9.99.
My favourite spring cliché is the hot-cross bun. Appearing in shops almost directly after Christmas, they never fail to lighten my spirit while adding pounds to my weight. I waved mine in the general direction of Ted’s trousers and said with some delicacy, ‘Do these signify that your thermal paraphernalia has now been stored away?’
‘If you’re talking about my long johns,’ he’d replied, ‘they will remain on an easily accessible shelf in the airing cupboard till Easter.’ There is something about this time of year that seems to inspire a March-to-May madness. Already my brother has dusted o his beaded flip-flops. How can he bear to change overnight, from fur-lined boots and woollen socks to flip-flops?
‘Aren’t your feet cold?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said cheerfully.
‘Then why don’t you put your socks back on?’
‘Because they don’t go with flip-flops.’
I almost understand how he feels. My own pastel-coloured towelling socks, so gratefully relinquished for warmer, sturdier ones in November, are now calling beguilingly from the back of my sock drawer.
Ted, intrigued by the report of my brother’s beaded flip-flops enquired, ‘Where would you get a pair of those?’
‘Gran Canaria?’
‘Really?’
He raised one eyebrow as if Gran Canaria was an easily accessible shoe shop in the shopping precinct.
All winter I’ve been content to appear pale and interesting. I’ve imagined that my complexion was not dissimilar to Julie Christie’s Lara in the film Doctor Zhivago, ideal for peeking charmingly from the depth of a faux-fur snood. Suddenly I yearned to be tanned, toned and tousled. The type of woman who lopes barefooted along a shoreline, a romping saluki at her heels.
In my local post office, Pearl the postmistress was displaying an admirable tanned cleavage. ‘A book of firstclass stamps, please,’ I said. ‘Are you just back from a holiday in the Med?’
‘No dear,’ she replied. ‘I’m using Bronzing Beads. Want a receipt?’
I took my receipt and made a mental note to investigate Bronzing Beads at the earliest opportunity.
Surely I can’t be the only person who wakes up one morning in late March, sun streaming through the window, to find themselves dissatisfied? I dislike the very pyjamas I’m standing up in, while wondering what possessed me to buy flannelette bed linen during that bitterly cold spell. Downstairs I hate my ethnic cushions bought the previous year for their warm, autumnal colours. Suddenly they look so… warm and autumnal. Even my cats seem inappropriate to the time of year.
For months, Boysie, Tommy Thomson and the obnoxious Lettuce have been lounging on my sofas but overnight they’ve become unwelcome winter accessories. I want them gambolling outside (I wouldn’t even mind if they turned into new-born lambs), sniffing burgeoning plant life, pollen sticking to their whiskers.
I need to reclaim my sofas. Brighten them up with newly purchased, fresh floral cushions. I shall add bowls of narcissi to kitchen table, coffee table and occasional table. My windows must sparkle and I must become reattached to my Hoover attachments.
‘What pretty cushions,’ my friends will say. ‘Just love the smell of your lavender furniture polish.’ And they’ll have that sort of glaze in their eyes as if they’re slightly dazzled. Without realising, they will be in the presence of spring, almost as real as if they were standing in a newly sprouting corn field, with a mild breeze ruffling their hair.
‘Just a few little touches to herald in the gentle season,’ I’ll murmur. ‘If you could sit lightly on my sofas or even remain standing.’
Recently, on the lookout for a mid-season jacket, I visited an out-of-town shopping centre. From the freezing, wind-whipped car park I followed a group of young women who wore little apart from brightly coloured scraps of material and orange tans, into a mega-sized Boots in the hope that they’d lead me to the Bronzing Beads. They were only buying sandwiches, but suddenly my search for the mid-season jacket seemed the dullest search since my friend Deirdre mislaid her spandex bionic gardening gloves with neoprene wrist support.
I was ready to strip off, not put on. Wasn’t it almost summer?
I went home with a pair of turquoise jeggings, a plunge-fronted, no-shouldered T-shirt, and a bikini. ‘Whatever possessed you?’ Deirdre asked.
‘When will you wear that bikini?’
‘I shall book a holiday abroad immediately.’
‘Wouldn’t it be more economical to return it to the chain store you bought it from?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Exchange those jeggings for a pair of useful linen trousers and sew up the shoulders of the T-shirt and add a modesty panel at the front?’
‘Point taken and ignored, Deirdre,’ I said.
Ted, still at my kitchen table, said, ‘We’d better get a move on with our runner beans.’
‘There’s no “we” about it,’ I replied. ‘You can get a move on with your runner beans. I shall sort mine out later.’
‘Later in the week?’
‘No, later in the year.’
Every spring, under Ted’s urging, I’ve planted runner beans, French beans, broad beans and courgettes, in pots on my windowsills. By April the beans are up to the ceiling, with courgette tendrils winding around the legs of my kitchen table and chairs. The room resembles a scene from The Day Of The Triffids.
‘Get ’em to the allotment,’ Ted advises. ‘They’ll be fine.’
Without fail, it rains, snows or blows a gale for the next month. Every plant shivers, withers, then dies.
‘I’m starting my vegetables this weekend,’ Ted says firmly.
‘I’m waiting for a sign,’ I tell him.
‘What sign would that be?’
I tap the side of my nose, ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out.’
Always You, Edina by VG Lee, is published by Ward Wood Publishing, priced £9.99.