Spring on the Wing

I've been watching the birds every morning. The robins are back! And there is a plethora of twittering, singing, flying, dancing birds of all colors everywhere at once. Quite cheeky, some of them. It has become my morning ritual to have tea bundled up on the porch and just watch and listen. Suddenly Spring is in the air. Quite literally. The air is rich with blossoms. The bulbs have all just thrust themselves forward and I am somehow convinced that the birds, the harbingers of Spring's promise, have enticed the flowers to show themselves. In some ways it has been a long winter. And to know my mum will see yet another spring means the world to me. It's impossible not to feel a lift, a feeling that Emily Dickinson was right and that hope really is the thing with feathers.