WE DON'T TELL THE FLOWERS WHEN TO bloom...

My mum always claims she can smell the precise moment spring begins — usually long before any official dates or cut offs — a hint of sweetness on the breeze and the feeling that growth is suddenly not just possible, but desirable once again. This sense of momentum is even there in the clock-change cliché — there’s a reason we ‘spring forward’. The extra daylight comes with a bonus call to arms; an urge towards movement and growth.

- By KATE TOWNSHEND

Spring fever is also a rather fitting term for this sudden excitement. This joy that skitters on the edge of something out of control as the natural world bursts into life around us. This sense that suddenly anything could happen again. Because there is, after all, genuine magic in a world that is dark and drained of colour one day, and one that is transformed into something quite different the next — a kind of travel that doesn’t even require us to leave our own front door.

And these are all reasons why I love the spring — I love the thrill of it and the sense that I might grow strong and brave again alongside the returning flora. In fact, this spring more than most, I feel a bit like a flower myself. Stuck in the dark for so long but finally feeling the light pouring into my body, keen to bloom but a little anxious about how well my petals are going to stand up, and the intensity of my colour, grateful for every drop of precious life that comes my way.

The world is waking up

Kendall Platt is a horticultural therapist whose work focuses on connecting people more with nature: “The reason spring impacts our mood and motivation is because we are seeing new growth all around us and we can’t help but want to get involved,” she explains. “As humans we are social beings and although we have become so disconnected from nature in many ways, we still came from nature and so we feel its pull as plants and wildlife around us begin to wake up and start to become active.”