Begin Again...

Spring and its new starts

Let’s start with a bunch of daffodils and a blank page, because I always find the winter hard to take.

Each year I have the thought that maybe this time, this one, this year is the one I don’t feel desiccated and tired and grey by the time early March comes. Every year I am mistaken and self-deluded. I do everything we’re supposed to: take vitamin D, walk outside, all that stuff, and yet by the time the days lengthen I realise that I’ve done it again and got swirled into the dark of the winter.

My home is getting tired around the edges. Not that intensely Instagrammable shabby-chic distempered-walls-and-dried flowers type, but the dining table being turned blue from my daughter and her cousins making slime type. There’s a candy floss maker and a slow cooker beside me which have not made their way back to where they belong. That type. The kind that demands action.

Start anywhere. Start small. Begin again.

It’s time for one of my favourite activities, which is to put on my boilersuit, go to the local tip, and then go to B&Q for supplies. I’ve got a pressure washer, which I love for its soothing hum and immediate results. I love the small, easy improvements that can happen within minutes.

I love the newness. And faced with a blank page, it’s time to start again. It’s time to open the window and admit the spring, feeling a tentative freshness replacing winter chill.

It’s time for a load of washing hanging on the line outside. It’s time to eat the first rhubarb, pink and delicate. It’s time to try the new beginnings of the spring and say, yes, I will have more of you.

It’s time to try and find five minutes with a blank page and write whatever comes into your head.

It’s time to start again.

If you feel the same, I’d love to hear where the smallest place you can begin is for you!