March's Malaise and the Nippon Connection.

Since this is the last day of March, let’s talk about the weather.

The March weather has been kind this year, especially over a space of about ten days up to and including Tuesday of this week. We were getting temperatures of around 18°C during the day, with mild nights to keep the frost at bay (there I go making things rhyme again. I sometimes wonder whether I was William Wordsworth in a previous life. Maybe it’s why I miss never having had a sister.) Anyway, the fact is that nature was getting way ahead of itself, but since it was late March there was reason to hope that spring had really sprung in earnest and the rest would be a gentle stroll uphill to the verdant meadows of summer.

But no. Yesterday the temperature dropped to 5°C and it was a bit of a shock. I do realise that there are people in the world living in temperatures far lower than that, but it comes back to that old matter of perception. What we find acceptable in terms of the weather is based on what we’ve become used to, so a drop of thirteen degrees in little more than twenty four hours is a bit of a slap in the mouth. Today we had some sunshine interspersed with cold winds, dark skies, and three or four mini blizzards. And the nights have followed suit. It was substantially below freezing last night, and we’re forecast more of the same for at least another two nights.

The thing is, you see, this doesn’t only depress the spirits, it also damages the blossom which gets blown off even if it survives the frosts. And if the blossom on fruit trees gets damaged, you don’t get any fruit. And then there’s the most important matter of the cherry blossom. There are three large and bountiful white cherry trees on the section of the school playing field opposite my house, and one of the great delights of every spring is to see them in bloom. This year they’ve been precocious, as many things in the plant world have, and are currently a mass of white flowers which glow alluringly in the sunshine. They suffered badly from April frosts last year, and I fear they’re going to go the same way again. If this were Japan, there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the moment.

I assume everybody know that the Japanese venerate cherry blossom, only they call it sakura over there because they use different words for things than we do. (Maybe that’s why they bombed Pearl Harbour, but I’m only guessing.) The fact is, though, that as soon as the cherry trees are in flower, they have wild and noisy parties which they call Hanami when all the bright young things go out into the parks and gardens with gallons of saké and a mountain of ghetto blasters. And it’s all because the cherry blossom reminds them that one day they have to die. (That was a joke on the ubiquitous fact of impermanence in case anybody didn’t get it. And it brings me back to Pearl Harbour again, but I’m still only guessing.)

So that is the current state of things on this last day of March. Glumness abounds, the kamikaze spirit stirs, the bees are getting confused, and it’s all because March has suddenly developed a headache and become grouchy.