Still half of the in-between month of March to endure

Country Notebook

WHAT’S your favourite month? Unless your birthday falls this month, I bet it isn’t March. Out for a walk alongside the estuary the other day, watching the skies darken and then the hail start to pour down, I realised I was experiencing this in-between month in all its raw, unforgiving power.

A few minutes earlier the family and I – out for our daily exercise with the dog – had been bathed in sunshine. It was almost warm enough to unbutton my jacket. Then the blustery wind whipped up, the temperature dropped five degrees and the hail briefly turned the spaniel a damp and dirty shade of offwhite.

March is the turning point from winter to Spring. But while plenty of people declare Spring to be their favourite season, few cite March as their favourite month. April, possibly; May, very likely. March, no chance.

The hedgerows are greening up, the wild garlic has been out for a couple of weeks and the early blossom is emerging. But there is too little of real Spring to see quite yet while cold spells, bone-chilling frost, hail, sleet and heavy rain are all very likely.

Admittedly, the dawn chorus is tuning up but summer still seems a very long away and, while drying winds can make the ground easier to walk on again, after the mud of February, it doesn’t take long before the puddles form once more.

April, is, according to poet T S Eliot, the cruellest month, because, critics tell us, it represents hope and, for Eliot, hope can lead only to disappointment. March, for me, is crueller and in a far more prosaic way – because it is colder, often wetter yet it’s not winter, when we have an excuse to wrap up or hunker down and not proper Spring, when we can truly feel the year turn. We’re halfway through, though. April, here we come.