Brrrrrrr...

So, this is spring, eh? I am sitting on our sofa in my fake fur gilet, the stove is burning the last of our old summerhouse and is trying extra hard to heat up the room but is failing, and it's snowing outside.

There's been precious little activity in terms of gardening so far. It's been cold and also quite wet and when it wasn't, we didn't even have to check the calendar to know that the sun only comes out on workdays. Weekends are purely for pishing it down. Or snowing and freezing.

Still, the British hysteria with regards to snow provides me with a continuous source of amusement. We had BBC News on over breakfast and while I was keen to find out whether Cyprus was going to the wall or not, the programme opened with snow. Snow everywhere. Up to 14-foot drifts in some places. Catastrophe. Yellow warnings. Travel only when necessary. I turned around to look outside. It was snowing alright, albeit in a vaguely bored fashion as if the weekend cloud shift was on a work-to-rule, and nothing was settling on the ground. "What is it with this country and the weather?" I said to OH, "Cyprus is going bust and the business blogosphere is talking about the biggest collective theft in world history being a mere two weeks away, and the BBC is spamming us with weather news." OH grabbed the tv and satellite remote: "Let's cut over to German tv. They'll be just as neurotic about the snow." He zapped to ARD, to a live ski jumping broadcast. "Hah!" I shouted proudly as another fragile little figure boinged off the giant ramp and sailed into the air, "look at my people! None of that whingey, whiny, wimpy celebrating of inflexibility and ineptitude. If it snows on the Continent, you bet my tribe will be JUMPING on it."

"That was a Japanese ski-jumper," OH remarked drily, "who is merely following his economy into the abyss." Back at BBC News, footage was shown of a grim-faced Angela Merkel looking as if she too wanted to jump on someone, preferably the Cypriot president, and squish him like a bug. I'd like to get proper tribal about world politics but I also know it's just theatre and the real wheeling and dealing is going on backstage and will no doubt involve airbases on the island and deep-water ports, gas concessions in the Levant Basin, and other quid-pro-quos.

If I turn around to our garden again, we can observe small-scale world politics around the various birdfood sites (banks), with the blackbirds (Germany, Russia, UK, France) thumping each other while the wiley robin (Cyprus) helps himself behind their backs and the bramlings, dunnocks and finches shivering anxiously in the hedge (Greece, Spain, Italy). Occasionally, a ponderous wood pigeon (USA) will fly in, eat everything on the ground and drop a shitbomb by way of thanks, and no-one notices the fat squirrel (the world's rich) siphoning grains off the workers (OH and me) at a rate of 2 birdfeeders a day.

As for the weather, OH is more connected to other allotmenteers and has reassured me. Hardly anyone has sown anything as even the greenhouses are struggling against the persistent cold. "March sowings have been postponed to April.", he said. I am looking outside into the garden that we want to redesign and make nice again and all I see is swamp, duckboards and old wooden chairs that scream "chop me up for firewood, go back inside and keep warm!"

The daffodils are out though, and that pleases me very much. I'm going to meet up with my Continental friend M next week and together we'll prepare the table and room decorations for our Easter Sunday brunch. It will involve copious amounts of eggs, food colouring and sea buckthorn bellinis.