Dear reader...

IF A MONTH ever reflected its name, it is March. Moving at a pace, it strides forward, with a singular intention to grow and burst forth with new life.

Yellow is everywhere: luminous; hopeful; full of sunshine. Country lanes are clothed in buttery celandines, their happy faces turned to the sky. Down on the farm, new life comes in the shape of feathery ducklings and fuzzy chicks.

In the garden, small ground-hugging flowers are replaced by those which shout out their spring salutations. Sunny daffodils sit alongside spears of golden forsythia, and clusters of eggy-centred cowslips hang above arrow-straight stalks.

I am buoyed by nature’s fervour, feeling the need to plan and make lists. There are seeds to sow: vegetables for the allotment and bright annual flowers for the garden. I have thought often about digging a new border; perhaps now is the time. I could fill it with wild flowers or maybe a cutting patch. A pond would also fit my plan, bringing aquatic life to my home.

It does not matter if all my plans do not come to fruition: the joy is in the dreaming and imagining of bright colours and new life. I will start by digging the border and see where the spring takes me…