The best thing about spring isn’t the flowers. It isn’t the clear robin’s egg blue sky or the puffy white clouds or even the warming temperatures. It’s the sheen of green. The sheen of bright, neon green that blooms on every living surface…every bush, every tree, every field, every hedge. It transforms the whole world, just like the hoarfrost does in the winter or the first snow. Today was so clear you could see forever. It was the kind of day when the hot air balloons come out, though we didn’t actually see any. I cut back last year’s growth...

Tomorrow is May Day. May First. Labor Day (for us Europeans) and a day off. It’s the first day of the FIFTH month of the year. How does that even happen? I mean how does it happen so FAST? The sun has finally decided, after a long sulking morning, to come out and play…though there are still an awful lot of white blobs bumbling around up there. It’s still quite chilly and I suppose my hopes that it would warm up a bit so I don’t have to sit outside and freeze tonight by the bonfire (I know, but you...