THE RETURN OF SPRING

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1732, 10 May 1905, Page 77 (Supplement)

THE RETURN OF SPRING

(From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, March 24.

“’When they paint the pillar-boxes, then I know that spring is here,” says a Cockney poet; but that is only his little joke. The change from the gloomy shades of winter to the brightness and genial warmth of spring is something more to the Londoner than a mere matter of spring-cleaning. It is one of Nature’s great transformation scenes. A week ago the city was still in winter garb ; the same old dull grey clouds effectually blotted out the sun, the same old mists hung in the streets, and the days were cold, and dark, and dreary. Then came Saturday, the first day of spring, and the city awoke as to a new life. .Gone the leaden pall of clouds, the mists, the cold, am,! in their place the sun shining bright and warm from a sky of glorious blue. So it has been all the week, and it is easy to. believe that winter is safely behind us at last. I think the Antipodean has to come to London to appreciate the beauty of spring-time to the full. Just as hunger is the best sauce, so is a London winter the best preparation for sunshine and flowers. Then the budding of the trees becomes a matter of supreme interest. You learn to watch for the little purple, wdiite and golden crocuses as the harbingers of spring, and after them the daffodils, the primroses, and the lilac ; and when the glorious colours are in full bloom in the parks, grey winter is not so far behind but you can remember the contrast, and be thankful. In parks and gardens, of course, rhe change is greatest, but the whole aspect of the city alters with the return of the sun. The Bloomsbury squares, so bleak and hare in winter-time, put on a fresh green dress upon which the eye rests gratefully, so picturesque and pleasant is the change. Presently the cabbies will bring out the white hoods of their hansoms, and the shopkeepers will let down the coloured awnings which do duty for verandahs in this part of the world. Straw hats will take the place of bonders, overcoats will disappear, country cousins will come flocking in to see the Tower and the Abbey, Liverpool will have its Grand National, and Oxford and Cambridge their boat-race on the Thames —and after that we may be sure that spring is here.