Springtime 🕰️ …

Spring cleaning and trying something new …

The daffodil buds have bravely been poking their heads through the leaves for a while with the weird, roller coaster weather, but they are now beginning to open. The snow drops are falling back into hibernation and the birds are making more and more noise. Spring is beginning, there is something uplifting about this time of year, even if it’s still cold, with frosts in the morning. Plants start pushing up from the ground, the buds on the trees begin to show, there is hope of warmer weather to come with the realisation that summer is not too far away and January and February are behind us.

Yet as I grow older there is a slight sinking feeling, how did that happen, another month gone. Not in a grumpy way but just genuine disbelief and puzzlement that time passes so much more quickly and seems to speed up every year. Unfortunately, according to Professor Adrian Bejan, it does. He states the reason being that the measurable ‘clock time’ is not the same as the time perceived by the human mind (Bejan, 2019). He expands in much greater detail in his article Why the Days Seem Shorter as We Get Older published in the European Review by Cambridge University Press.

A more manageable, digestible and hopeful explanation is provided by Dr David Hamilton, a writer and kindness scientist. I love the line where he says ‘Novelty … causes neurogenesis in the brain, the birth of brand-new brain cells’. Hamilton advises that we can slow the apparent speed of time down by doing something different, something new, a new recipe, new routes to work, the shops or dog walking, learning a new dance or language, new skill. Does that mean there is hope yet for my little, diminishing, grey cells?

What things could you do to cause neurogenesis in your brain? Any suggestions for me, anybody? Any reasonable suggestions considered.

Back on track and away from the diversion. Spring does have its draw backs, grumpy old woman time. For one thing the sun streaming through my downstairs windows, why you ask, that should be good, bringing light into my life. In the Estate Agent trade there is a thing called ‘nose marks’. These are very, very obvious when the sun shines through the glass. As you can see from the evidence below, there are 2 massive conks in my house that are continuously leaving nose marks. In the winter the artistic mark making doesn’t show so much, and the curtains hide them for a significant proportion of the day, but, for the majority of the time, in spring my windows look like they have frosted glass. When I do clean the window it lasts about 1/2 day before they start frosting over. The sun also shows up all the dust in the air and everywhere else. The summer sun is too high to shine in directly, and the winter sun is too low, so isn’t so much of a problem.

Humphrey & Mildred’s schnozes

Now meteorological spring is with us does that mean I need to do the spring cleaning 🧹 🧽. Who invented spring cleaning? … … ok here’s a potted history of spring cleaning, curtesy of Wikipedia. My house keeping prowess in non existent, as many who know me will concur, so spring cleaning is a BIG task. As I grow older it gets more difficult to reach those parts everyone else can, I exaggerate for literary purposes and as an excuse. Getting low down means it’s difficult getting up, them bones them bones, them old bones, and high up parts mean I have to get the step ladder out. I am sure I have to get up an extra step each year, proves how often I do housework.

Ok, I have had my grumpy old woman moment, spring does have many benefits. The sun streaming through the windows acts both as central heating, and as a tumble dryer, and lets light in. The days get longer. I don’t have to rush to get the dogs out before it gets dark nor struggle with leads, poo bags and torches at the same time. The mornings are lighter making it so much easier to get out of bed, even if it’s a bit chilly. The garden is showing signs of coming to life with vibrant colours. I have to admit I feel so much better when I have sorted the cupboards, windows, floors, walls etc out and everything is much tidier and fresher. A good spring clean somehow seems to sort my brain out as well.

Spring is a positive season, a time for looking forward to warmth, vibrant colours and nature rejuvenating. Although for me it is a sad time too, a time of loss. Time as we grow older seems to pass more quickly, but as Dr Hamilton suggests maybe we all should try new things to increase our little grey cells to elongate time 🕰️.

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud - William Wordsworth (1802)

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

– William Wordsworth (1802)