Spring

Spring is undoubtedly in the air. The clocks went forward last weekend and, as if by some meteorological magic, the first day of British Summer Time was a glorious bright and sunny day, with just a hint of coldness to remind you that we’re not quite out of the woods yet and that those jumpers need to stay on the top of the pile in your wardrobe. To misquote Charles Dickens, a man must be a misanthrope indeed in whose breast something like jovial feeling is not roused by the recurrence of spring. I am that man.

One of my neighbours, a burly South African, is impervious to cold weather and has been wearing shorts throughout the winter; his sole change to his wardrobe in the spring months is to switch to flip-flops rather than trainers, and then in the height of summer loses even the flip-flops to walk from house to garage barefoot. Everyone in our street, aside from our immediate neighbours – with whom we do actually talk from time to time – has their own, made-up, identity – his is No Shoes, his wife rather cruelly is Lilo Lil after the character in Bread; further up their terrace lives Paul O’Grady just because he has a passing resemblance to said TV personality, and next to him live Dane Bowers and his girlfriend Jordan. Except that Dane is in fact from Yorkshire rather than Essex and Jordan is anything but the surgically enhanced creation who previously dated the real Mr Bowers. There are many others, but you get the gist.

No Shoes’ dad visits him frequently, and leaves breakfast hanging from their door handle on a Sunday morning in a Tesco carrier bag. He has one of those Hamish / Germanic beards that clings to the underside of his chin and neck with very little hair on his cheeks, and so we have dubbed him Hans. It passes the time. Hans and No Shoes are keen gardeners and have set about transforming the garden area around the communal parking area they share with Dane & Jordan, Paul and the other residents of the terrace and their activities at rejuvenating an otherwise staid area of block-paved car parking over the past week have thoroughly depressed me.

Spring of course heralds the onset of the gardening season, and once again I find myself being torn between excitement and misery at another year of failed seedlings, slug-ridden borders and wonky lawn edges. My parents have decided to rid themselves of their lawn this year and instead have opted for a mostly paved series of staggered patios with large pots filled with exotic plants, which seems like an eminently sensible idea as I embark once again on a no-doubt futile attempt to create a cottage style garden with lots of colour all year long whilst trying desperately to undertake as little actual hard work as possible.

After last year’s debacles, including the infamous mini-greenhouse / high wind setback, the army of slugs that left my meadow border devoid of anything except poppies, and the sweet peas that refused to climb the canes I lovingly and competently lashed together despite never having been to Scouts, my gardening confidence is at an all-time low, and therefore the onset of spring provides little cheer for me. What does bring some cheer is the birdoir that I have created in a tree at the bottom of the garden consisting of various food-dispensing items which are proving popular with a family of blue tits, sparrows and a pair of blackbirds, thus ensuring that our mostly house-bound cat sits at the lounge window going nearly out of her mind. At least I feel like I'm doing my bit for the disappearing avian population.

Similarly, I was reminded yesterday as I boarded the train home of how uncomfortable train journeys in the summer can be, and even now a commute can be rendered hellish as the temperatures subtly rise (as they seem to be at the moment) while the train companies react slowly to switching off the heating – heating which has just one setting, ‘oven’ – leaving you needing a coat outside the train because it’s just a little bit too cold to go without, but shedding layer upon layer of clothing once you get inside the train for fear of passing out through heat exhaustion. The heat inside the carriage means that everyone pulls open the paltry windows to allow cooler air to circulate around the carriage, rendering effective use of headphones useless unless you want to cause permanent ear damage by spinning your iPod’s volume ever clockwise to counteract the increased noise generated by wind swirling through the windows and around the carriage.

Last year I commented on the simple joy afforded by the early morning sun rising over the old Pearl Assurance building on High Holborn as you turn into that road from Southampton Row. Reflecting on that inspirational morning ritual, as well as the way the City’s few tall office buildings reveal themselves to you as you walk further down High Holborn to roughly Chancery Lane, has also depressed me since the clocks went forward. In order to see those remarkable sights, I'd need to be walking into the City from Euston, as I was for much of last year. This year, unfortunately, hasn’t got off to the best start and I've probably schlepped into work on foot probably no more than once, and so I've missed out on all the things I used to cherish on my way into work, and all the new things that one can see by just varying the regular journey to work. I can, however, confirm that there is nothing new or of interest on the Underground line between Euston Square and Liverpool Street.

That’s not to say that I haven’t got great intentions of exploring the area around our London base this year. I have made a firm promise to myself to go and visit some of the capital’s landmarks during lunchbreaks and obtain a better understanding and perspective on the history and geography of London. Call it a late New Year’s Resolution, but for the last eighteen months I've been obsessing over New York City after a fateful trip there in 2005 and have devoured endless nuggets of information about that most beautiful city, and have largely ignored the City on my own doorstep. The pleasant introduction of clearer, sunnier days provides an impetus and a drive to get out into London whenever I can, but this will be a struggle while I continue to choose sitting on my backside eating my lunch at my desk to plough through more work over going out at lunch for a stroll. Might as well have another biscuit, eh? That Damien Hirst exhibition round the corner on London Wall runs until the middle of next week after all.

The acknowledgement that my life seems to be an unhealthy blend of too little sleep, early rises, sitting on trains for long periods (with the attendant breakfast and snacks offered by travelling first class), bouts of stressful energy, followed by an hour on my feet delivering a presentation, followed by the train journey home, provides yet another reason to be uncharacteristically pessimistic as we enter spring. My weight is presently hovering at or around 11.5 stones, which is the heaviest I've been since sixth form, I have lost the definition to my leg muscles and in all I've started to feel like turning thirty last year has brought with it an appropriate middle-age spread.

I have therefore been shanghaied into joining a local gym, ostensibly so that we can take Seren swimming, but more likely because my wife can’t conceal the giggles when I remove my clothes to change into pyjamas at night. I've been here before – this is the fifth gym induction I’ll have been on in almost ten years – but this time it feels like it’s driven out of necessity rather than some vague opportunity to partake in a leisurely pursuit than I never found particularly leisurely. I therefore feel surprisingly motivated today, despite contemplating a no doubt humiliating tour around the gym this evening by some toned beefcake who thinks the route to all human happiness lies in the intimidating area of the gym known as ‘The Free Weights Area’.

In spite of all of this, the recent pleasant weather holds forth the promise of days out, picnics with our daughter and generally a more optimistic outlook after the cruel and punishing winter months. I find this time of year a much more opportune time to start making those big plans, rather than just after Christmas where everything feels a little strained and miserable. My head is buzzing with the things that I want to achieve for the rest of the year, the decorating jobs I've been avoiding all winter, the garage that I've been trying to clean out for over a year, the unused things that need to get put on eBay, the savings that we’ve not made and the things we always said we’d buy but never got around to. Oh, and that book I said I'd write but didn’t and all those things I promised my wife I'd get done but was too lazy in the winter to be bothered with.