What is your favorite season of the year? Why?

The moment the last Christmas visitor leaves I am alert to the first signs of Spring. Snowdrops are the first sign but bunches of supermarket daffodils are more reliable and achievable, living as I do in a coastal area of a city.

Although my love for Spring is genuine, there is an element of it also being an escape from dull, wet, winters. This year there was no escaping dull and wet. Spring failed to lift my rain averse mood until quite recently. All will be well now until Christmas with just a minor mood dip in autumn when all the fabulous orange and russet colours are hijacked by the faustian pact made between retailers and fools for the Western Worlds Dance Macabre of Halloween, in all its tacky plastic nastiness. I survive, just about, with my obsessive love of pumpkins.

The anticipation and revelation of Spring is what encourages me through winter once the Christmas Spirit has slipped away.

Spring is the season that opens the door to summer, autumn and early winter. Seasons that encourage giddiness and frivolity.

I suppose I have never quite engaged with winter. I try to seek out the positives but they really are pretty elusive. I know that the arrival of Spring is like opening a dark chamber of dankness and illuminating it with fragile sunbeams. Just like a bear I could happily sleep through it and be  woken with a nice cup of tea served on a tray with a biscuit and a small vase of daffodils.

,,” Good morning” says Spring “I have arrived”