The encroaching Spring

Return of the daffodil

Rain

Posts are going to be a bit erratic on this blog for the moment I'm afraid. My mother is very very ill in hospital and that's all I'm really able to concentrate on at the moment. I'll post when I can, when I think I'm able to and hope to get back to an equilibrium soon. But in the meantime, please excuse me if I disappear for a few days without warning. Thank you.

Be assured, Smith will continue to post on GoComics on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays, whatever happens.

Return of the parping daffodils

Well, it's spring in the cartoon, even if the warm weather hasn't reached the real world yet. Anyone who has linked to my Facebook page will know that I was trapped in my car for five hours last week, trying to get home through a 'snowstorm'. As blizzards go it was pretty pathetic, maybe an inch fell, but it was enough to cause accidents on all the roads into Hastings, and stop the traffic in all directions. I was lucky enough to be marooned on Battle High Street, so the chap in the car behind me did his weekly shop while the traffic wasn't moving, and I popped into a pub for a bit.

If it's spring that means the parping daffodils are back...

Hayfever

True fact - I used to have terrible hayfever as a child but it was cured by osteopathy. I know it sounds incredible, in fact I can barely believe it myself, but its true.

Osteopathy, for the uninitiated, is one of those alternative therapies like homoeopathy and reflexology which likes to pretend it is scientifically based but is actually a load of mumbo jumbo. It works on the theory that mechanical faults in the skeleton can cause problems in other areas of the body. My mum swears by it - I'm less convinced but I have to admit that in my case it worked. I was five or six, and I was accompanying my mum to the surgery. The doctor, Stuart Korth, offered to try out a theory he had about hayfever for free. So I got to climb onto the couch with the nose shape cut out in it (funny how the little details stick in your mind) and he massaged my back for a few minutes. And that was it. I didn't understand what was going on, I thought I was just getting a go at what my mum was having done. But I haven't had hayfever since.

My brain tells me Osteopathy should be utter rubbish. My nose knows better. And I don't think we're looking at a placebo effect here, that would assume I knew what was happening in the first place. I truly can't explain this...

Occasional showers

This is how you know it's Spring in the UK - the weather changes every five minutes.

Strangely, I've discovered you can two two different seasons happening at the same time. I live in Hastings on the south coast. It's spring here - the two cherry trees at the entrance to our road are just starting to come out in bloom and the crocuses and daffodils on the road verges have been out for a week. However, I work in Tunbridge Wells, 25 miles inland, and it's still Winter there. I went for  a walk on the common this lunchtime, and nothing's stirring there yet.

Summer plumage

Today is the first day of Spring. Therefore it's the day the strip switches from its faded winter palette to its more vibrant summer colour scheme. Then, round about the end of September everything will go a bit brown and orange and then we'll be back to the winter palette again.