Easter finally arrives, along with summer time and April Fools’ Day. I can’t remember when all those dates coincided. I also can’t remember such a long, hard and cold winter. The first frost came the day the clocks went back (five long months ago). The first snow fell before St. Niklas day (My Flemish friends pointed this out. I wouldn’t have noted that as a significant date). It snowed every night in the week before Easter, including Good Friday. Different reports suggest that it has been the coldest /longest winter for more than fifty years (in 1962 the River Thames froze over) or since 1916 (when several million men were living in war-time trenches in Belgium and must have suffered horribly).
The crocuses (and snowdrops) in Wageningen were still in flower when I was back there a week ago. Gardeners' schedules are some five weeks behind and Welsh hill-farmers are digging their sheep (often dead) out of snowdrifts. I had a Canadian couch surfer stay last week who told me that the snow came ten days earlier than usual and was deeper than anyone can remember. Hey,in my books the Canadians know their snow (and probably have as many words for it as the British do for precipitation). Today the skies are blue –although overnight temperatures will go below zero for the coming weeks.
Nichiren says spring always follows winter. Sure is a long time coming! To remind me of that possibility I bought some flowers for my table this weekend. I've lived a long in the Netherlands, where cut flowers are really cheap. They were one of the first things that fell off my shopping list when I moved to Belgium, so having flowers on the table again feels like a real act of self-indulgence
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