I’ve a spring in my step and it’s all down to silly season headlines

THERE are always arguments in these parts over when spring is really sprung. The Irish calendar says it is the first day of February – St Brigid’s Day being the traditional harbinger for the changing of the seasons.

Met Éireann, which is rarely to be trusted, does not respect ancient religion and goes with the nuclear option of March 1 because of something to do with science which I don’t want to know about.

Astronomers who have apparently measured the stars and the axis of the Earth in exquisite detail throw March 20 into the mix, but that way lies madness because that would place St Patrick’s Day in winter which, even though it frequently feels that way, is just patently wrong.

Well, great news. I can officially announce the end of confusion and the delightful news that spring has now started. Just as generations of my rural forebears measured the real start of spring by marking the date of the first cuckoo call (and in some cases writing letters to the papers about it), I now have a ring on my calendar with Monday’s date on it. ‘Ireland will be hotter than the French Riviera this week,’ read the headline in several newspapers. And there it was: the first ‘hotter than somewhere hot’ headline of the season.

Spring has sprung. Now cue six months of headlines promising temperatures higher than places where high temperatures are the norm – and, of course, six months of indignant conversations on chilly mornings that begin with rueful head-shaking and include the phrase, ‘and they said it would be hotter than the Riviera’. Ah Ireland, my Ireland. Literally, you could set your watch by it.

I’m glad to have cleared that up – though I do know the debate over when spring actually starts will continue in many households, not least ones which, like my own, have been invaded by perfidious Brits. The problem with the Brits – well, one of them – is that their seasonal calendar is a month behind ours. The Brits don’t accept that spring starts in February, not least because February 1 is usually dark and freezing. But equally, March 1 is surely too late, because if you were to advise anyone now that spring is still over a week away, they just wouldn’t accept it. We never seem to have the same intensity of debate over any other season commencement as we do over spring – bear in mind that all our seasons begin a month earlier than they do in the UK. I presume that isn’t just because it’s frankly ridiculous to suggest that November is an autumn month, but also because more than any other season, we’re all dying for spring to arrive.

At least this year we haven’t had a winter that was colder than somewhere really cold – though I’m mindful that you could have made that same cheerful claim this day last year, just before we were plunged into a colder-than-Siberia spell that we will talk about for years to come.

But there is still something about spring: the promise of more daylight, of the odd bit of sunlight, of everything starting to grow again and the giddiness of facing forwards towards summer rather than winter. No wonder we get so hot under the collar waiting for it to start.

STILL, if we are to measure it by Hotter-Than-The-Riviera headlines, that means that spring actually starts in the middle of February. Take that to its logical conclusion and we can postpone the start of the subsequent seasons by a fortnight, so that summer starts in mid-May and ends in mid-August (sensible), and winter begins in mid-November, which also makes more sense than insisting that the day before December 1 is autumnal. Think about it: if we offered the adjusted seasons to our soon-to-be-sundered neighbours, it could become a hands-across-the-Irish-Sea post-Brexit peace offering; the foundation of a beautiful new friendship.

Or maybe we’ll always have to agree to differ. A friend of mine rejects my seasonal adjustment order out of hand, contending instead that spring and autumn shouldn’t be fully fledged seasons at all – rather, that they should be relegated to sort of support slots to the main events of summer and winter. To this end, he suggests that both supporting seasons be shortened to two months – with spring confined to March and April and autumn occupying September and October. ‘And who doesn’t want a four-month summer?’ he adds persuasively. Ah, but who wants a four-month winter, I counter. And on and on the world keeps turning.

Maybe, in all this spring-loaded confusion, there is only one universal truth, and that is that you won’t feel it now till summer. As to whether Ireland will be hotter than the Riviera by the weekend, there is a reason why the season got his name. Truly, hope springs eternal.