Spring: The Good and the Bad.

The good news is that spring sprang most splendidly in the Shire today. The upwardly mobile sun shone benevolently from an azure sky while the temperate breeze blew softly and an archipelago of soft cumulus drifted at snail’s pace across the hills above the river valley. Crowds of stately daffodils joined with the rampant celandines in turning their golden faces to the great orb, patches of fresh green appeared in the hedgerow hawthorn, the whiteness of the blackthorn blossom glowed happily, and the plumping leaf buds of the horse chestnut trees looked set to burst into beneficent grandeur.

For the first time since last November I sallied forth on my walk today without the protective thatching of my beanie hat or the insulating qualities of my best winter coat. Fortunately there was no one around to fail to recognise me, thereby troubling my equilibrium with a confused sense of identity. And when I took my afternoon tea and biscuit, I did so outside in my usual spot close to one of the bird tables. A robin spoke to me in an irritated tone: ‘Do you have to sit there?’ he remonstrated. ‘You know we’re reluctant to feed when you’re sitting too close. Good job it’s warm and sunny today, so we’re not as ravenous as usual.’ ‘But that’s precisely why I’m sitting here,’ I answered smugly. ‘Mmm, suppose so,’ he replied, and then flew into the nearby hedge, studiously avoiding the low-life sparrows which congregate there. (Robins are well known for exhibiting a sense of superiority in the matter of sparrows.)

But all the time I kept on reminding myself that March can be treacherous. The verges of the Shire lanes might be set in frozen mud next week, and my beanie hat might be augmented by my voluminous red scarf to make the business of walking tolerable.

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The bad news is that I read about Mr Putin holding a rally to help convince his supporters that murdering innocent Ukrainians is a fine and heroic way to celebrate the arrival of spring. It occurred to me – not for the first time – that the human race is broadly divided into the good people and the bad people, and that Russians are presumably no exception. It further occurred to me that the simplest way to solve the Ukraine crisis would be for someone to separate Mr Putin from his life force, but that isn’t likely to happen because good people are, thankfully, not given to committing murder. Such an action is generally the preserve of the bad people, and they’re all standing in line behind their leader, no doubt cheering and singing patriotic songs. Ironic, isn’t it?