There is an old English saying that March “Comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.”  Well I don’t know about the lamb part (though I think we are all keeping our fingers very firmly crossed on that subject) but the lion part is certainly striking a chord.

Looking out of the window on March 1st we saw the above scene, lots of snow falling.  It settled through the day, fluffy and light but with a sense of purpose.  That snow wanted to cover as much as it could with it’s white blanket, and cover it did.

Since then we’ve and a few above 0 c days but not that many.  Today it’s going to reach a mighty 3 c and outside is now slushy and icy, a bit treacherous underfoot and much less pretty than when the pure white flakes of snow were falling with a soft hiss.  But I’ll take it.

This winter has been totally defined by the weather, so deeply cold that it really becomes hard to imagine that it will ever go.  The other day, when I was out feeing the pigs and chickens, it occurred to me that we were a wardrobe and streetlamp away from Narnia.  I swear if I had stood still long enough the sound of sleigh bells and the scent of Turkish Delight would have reached me…

For now there are glimmers of spring, days above bone shatteringly freezing that hint as the possibility of the earth one day returning to brown and green.  I know it is a scientific inevitability and yet I find it hard to really believe right now.  The warmer days are overcast and filled with the sound of melting snow hitting the ground as icy water, patches of muddy  earth are emerging in random places but still hold on to that look of winter, of cold and lifeless space.

But I know, with the certainty of years on this earth, from somewhere deep inside that has roots down into the brown beneath the white, that we are approaching the end.  Soon I will turn my face up to the warm sun, listen to the birds and scent the sweet smell of new life on the breeze.  I will shed my layers and wander out in short sleeves, my eyes shaded from the burning sun by my floppy brimmed hat.  I know there will come a day where I will complain of the heat that never seems to end but, after the winter we’ve had, I feel like it will take a lot of hot days to really warm me right through.