Spring

On Saturday we went for our first canoe trip of 2009, along the River Stour from Sudbury to Henny. It was calm and warm, and a heron flew slowly up from the bank ahead and settled where we couldn't see it, but when we approached it a second time it took off again. Then in the car on the way home, we saw our first swallow of the year. Such sightings are like blessings.

And our pond must now contain a couple of firkins of frogspawn, and several dozen newts, some of which are easily caught by dipping one's hand under them. So it's spring - time to be on a bike or in a canoe or just having coffee in the garden.

This description of a very different spring comes from the book I'm reading set in 14th century Norway, Kristin Lavransdatter.

One evening in the early spring Rangfrid had to send down the valley to old Gunhild, the widow who sewed furs. The evening was so fair that Kristin asked if she might not go; at last they gave her leave because all the men were busy.

It was after sunset, and a fine white frost haze was rising toward the green-gold sky. Kristin heard at each hoof-stroke the brittle sound of the evening's ice as it broke and flew outwards in tinkling splinters. But from all the roadside brakes there was a happy noise of birds singing, softly but full-throated with spring, into the twilight.

When I checked the meaning of brake, I found that although it meant a thicket of bushes, it had quite a few other meanings: a cage, an instrument for peeling the bark from willows, a baker's kneading-machine, a nose-ring for a draught ox.

And here's part of John Milton's Song on May Morning, which I quote in my novel Companion to Owls

Now the bright morning star, Day's harbinger,

Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her

The flowery May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip , and the pale primrose.