CANDLES IN THE PARK

I wrote this piece eleven years ago, and I  have trotted it out from time to time since then. I hope it helps as we endure this present cold spell.

For days it had been bitterly cold. A wind too. Not a blowing wind you'll understand, but a stealthy, biting, hostile air, that seemed to seek out and penetrate every chink in bodily insulation. And it was dry, though not with the dryness of fair-weather days, a bare, barren, unsmiling dryness. The streets seemed swept clean of even the tiniest trace of rubbish. Not the smallest sweet paper or discarded bottle top to be seen. It would indeed have been a most welcome sight had it not been so bitterly, bitterly cold. In weather like this, people did not delay to remark on such things as the bareness of the streets. It was far too cold to stop for anything much.

But some things still had to be done, which is why he found himself seeking the scant shelter of the Hawthorn hedge. There he stood, reminding others how bitterly cold it was, or being told by them in turn. Plastic bag in hand he kept an impatient vigil, while his dog worked up the energy to perform. "Come on, boy", he muttered, "get on with it, this is no weather for hanging about" and the dog seemed to agree. There was something forlorn and desperate about the hunched back, as he bent to his task.

It was when he broke from his flimsy cover to clear the mess the dog had made that the flash of yellows and whites and purples caught his eye. He came that way every morning but had not noticed them before. Yet suddenly they were here. He can't have looked closely enough yesterday! Surely they could not have come through the hard barren earth of the park in just one night.

However it had happened, there they were, and his heart lifted. "The crocuses are up" he called, and then felt a little silly for there was no one there to hear. Of course, had there been someone there, he would still have called out, for this was surely good news indeed. If the crocuses were up, the snowdrops were too. Spring must surely be on its way.

Though he could not claim to be young, the thought of spring brought a rush of fancy to his head. Perhaps during the dead days since New Year, there had been some kind of underground convention, a gathering of snowdrops, crocuses, and all such as bring the yearly news of spring's arrival. Overnight these standard bearers of hope had agreed that today would be the day when they would arise and wave the flag of warmer days ahead. They had resolved to cheer the hearts of all those who trod the cold earth above. "Surprise, surprise, here we are".

This seemed to him to be such a proper concept of nature's affairs that he stood there in the otherwise cheerless air, positively enraptured by these first flames of spring. So uplifted of heart was he that he failed utterly to notice the white fall of flakes coming to him from out of the leaden skies. He did however have the distinct impression that it was not now, quite so cold.