A scream

At two minutes to six yesterday evening I heard a terrifying scream. I had been in the process of logging on for Zoom church Easter service. It was a scream of shock rather than pain, I thought it warranted my immediate investigation.

My 14 year old daughter stood before me, pond weed in her hair, trousers and jumper soaking wet, stammering that my 12 year old had pushed her into the pond.

The cause of concern wasn’t so much the wet and cold, although that contributed to the reaction of shock; but the fear that she would be attacked by untold varieties of pond life. Newts, frogs, pond snails and probably the Loch Ness monster.

I mopped her up, physically and emotionally. Suggested she have a warming and cleansing bath. Then I turned my attention to my 12 year old.

My 12 year old is an incredibly adept defence lawyer, and started her explanation that ‘pushing’ was entirely the wrong way to look at things. Apparently, the girls were playing ball. The ball landed in the 4 ft by 2ft pond, which is only nearly 2ft at its deepest point. A product of lockdown 1. They knelt beside it to reach the ball. However, instead of using teamwork to achieve a desired outcome, my 12 year old leaned against my 14 year old in an attempt to reach the ball first.

The difference between leaning and pushing is slight. However, the outcome was obviously not what either of them expected. At 6pm my 12 year old was ordered upstairs to change into pyjamas with no access to social media. Sometimes the old sanctions are still effective.

When everyone was warm, dry and apologetic, I returned to my church service; I’d only missed the first two verses of the opening hymn and afterwards we settled for a family viewing of ‘The Railway Children’ to celebrate more of our wonderful ‘Shows must go on’ theatre, just in case our evening hadn’t been dramatic enough. A lovely end to our Easter day.

The energy of Spring

A strange thing happens when Spring starts, when the clocks go forward and when I know my birthday is on the horizon. It almost as if I reset. It’s almost like my New Year.

March is such a mix of winter and spring. We are told we can start planting, but only under cover or in greenhouses; we go on walks but be careful of mud and wind and, towards the end of the month, the clocks go forward in that archaic event that people have argued about for years.

I love March. I love the ‘coat and scarf in the morning – t-shirt in the afternoon’ weather. I like that I can get to 4pm and it’s still light outside. Even with the year pandemic and the threat of a global climate crisis looming, March still manages to hold its own.

Connecting to our environment is so important. When my girls attended nursery we were given strict instructions that they would play out in all weather and would therefore need clothes to suit the weather of the season. It’s a privilege to witness children reacting to new experiences, especially when they see rain, wind, snow and storms and begin to recognise a power beyond themselves.

Spring brings it’s own energy. Life seems easier to manage if you can see that daffodils have struggled though snow storms and still manage to blossom.

Even though the weather reporter warns of early morning ground frosts, I know it won’t be long before my seedlings can go outside.