Goodbye February 2015

Right, January went from having a pleasantly over-indulgent rounding off of the Christmas season and thank-you-but-I've-had-enough-chocolate,-cheese-and-wine-and-don't-talk-to-me-about-liqueurs-for-another-eleven-months-and-where's-the-timetable-for-the-yoga-centre? kind of feel to it, to superintensiveclassicintensiveoffsitepage43?itmustbeTuesdayandtellmeagainhowmanydayswe'vegottilltheweekend. Then we got - I dunno, we've still got one day to go and I think I may be delirious - Flubruary? Pharyngary? Bronchiary?.... Ah soddit, Plaguary - yes. But now, literally in the last 36 hours or so, I've felt a change in the quality of the light, a lightening in the air, a sense of sap stirring. Concrete pavements, asphalted roads and iron lampposts are pale grey under a white sky. Bare-branched, motley-barked trees seem to be holding their breath and expanding towards the white-gold sun in discreet but irrepressible ecstasy. And after weeks of feeling utterly at one with the sofa, of blissful burrowings under pillows and quilts, of keeping the windows shut, the heating up and the kettle on, I find that I want to - mooooove..... Did someone say yoga? What a seductive idea... Mountains? Are those mountains? I'd forgotten. Ooh, don't they look inviting! I'll bet there's fresh air up there. Birds. Lichen-covered limestone boulders (my favourite!). Shining streams flowing over fascinating brown mud and bright green moss. Peace. And a sky as wide as - the sky! Where are my boots? What time's the train? Ooh! And the Improv Meetup! What could me more fun than crossing the city to spend a surreal hour or two making a complete twit of myself with a bunch of very-strangers? And why couldn't I see the attraction last weekend? Haha!!!!!!!! Let's hear it for March, that cheeky, swaggering little upstart, all mouth and ragged-arsed trousers, who always has to be first with the news that the tarpaulin's coming off, the motor's revving up, the first violin's having it out with the third trombone, the pastry chef is on the point of exploding with anticipation and - Did you doubt her? Oh you foolish, weak-minded sillies! Has she ever let you down? Of course not! So - Dig out your dancing wellies! - Spring is on her way!