Out for a walk this afternoon in the sunshine.  Not had time much this week, so this was the first day I had felt an appreciable warmth in the air.  The sap is rising.  Buds are bursting.  The Forsythia bush is flowering.  Daffodils and crocuses are making a colourful display.  It’s all very heartening.  

I was delighted to see the first Brimstone butterfly as I was out.  Its sulphur yellow wings showed up brightly in the sun as it flew strongly and high across a clearing over some rough ground.  According to The Observer’s Book of Butterflies, “It can be seen any sunny day from March to June in almost every English and Welsh county” – a real harbinger of Spring.

The birds are singing with full throat now as they stake out their territories and begin their nests.  The moss on our back garden proves a popular material.  Blackbirds scoop it up, but others too.  The Great Tits are showing much interest in our nesting box.  Wrens and Robins are busying themselves as well.  

In the Parish I have just completed arrangements for the Easter Masses.  Christ’s rising takes the feel-good aspects of Spring to a still higher level.  At Easter we celebrate not just new life, but eternal life.  Altogether I’m beginning to feel a return of real hope for the first time in a long time.

MICHAEL KIRKHAM