Firsts

Spring is a season of firsts. The first crocuses. The first snowdrops. The first daffodils. A piece of tangled waste ground offers the season’s first coltsfoot flowers, lemon discs among frazzled grass. I see my first bee on the edge of the park, frantically seeking nectar, a day after the spring equinox. The hawthorn leaves are unfurling. Daisies and dandelions scatter the grass and crocuses have given way to lesser celandine. There are other firsts throughout the year – the first snow, the first leaves turning – but no season offers as many firsts as spring.

On the eve of the equinox I have my first Covid vaccination. My wife and I visit the local sports centre and have our jabs together. It is quick, friendly and efficient. We walk home light-footed, stickers on our jackets proclaiming we’ve been vaccinated. That night I dream vividly. I am standing at the edge of a canal in a perfect, purple dawn. The landscape is luminous, as it often is beside water at sunrise. Water and land seem to seep into each other so I can’t be sure which I am walking on. I am filled with peace. Later, some tiny birds have been caught in a spiders’ web and I have to gently brush strands of spider silk away from their feathers to set them free – I wake not knowing if I succeeded.

The cemetery is shades of green and yellow. The crocuses are all but gone now, but the daffodils are in full bloom: clumps and trails and sunbursts in and around the graves. I see my first primroses: less abundant and less showy than the daffodils, they form delicate clusters close to the ground. I find a handful of wood anemones and a single spray of snake’s head fritillary. A few early bluebells stipple the ground and pink blossom droops from a group of gracefully spreading trees.

There is a soundscape of birdsong. The great tit is the star of the bird choir, in volume if not tunefulness, with others as a quieter accompaniment. Magpies chirrup high up in the trees. I see a crow in the long grass, a pair of collared doves silent in a tree above, a trio of woodpigeons resting on a grave. Most of the birds are busy in the canopy, staking claim to territory and perhaps building the first nests of the season.

Spring’s firsts never lose their charms. I have seen fifty springs but I still thrill at the first flowers shooting through the soil, the sound of a renewed dawn chorus and signs of new life. Every spring is the same and every spring is different. We can rely on the return of those same firsts, but we will never experience them in quite the same way. The lengthening days give us hope and energy, but I think it is also the profusion of firsts that stir our vitality at this time of year.

The first of our lockdown restrictions are lifted today. We are following a timetable that suggests we will be back to some kind of normality by the summer solstice. Nothing feels much different at the moment. I find it impossible to believe that in a few short months this will be over. I imagine us like children emerging from the pandemic, eyes squinting in the sunlight. I hope we approach it with childlike wonder, rather than teenage rebellion. Those first hugs. Those first outings. Those first holidays. They will be the foundation of a what might be a better future. I hope we savour them.