In which Spring is Sprung, Grass is noted to have Risen, and the Location of Birds is Queried

Which is to say: Hey guys, it’s spring! I tend to think of myself as unbiased in my Seasonal Preferences, but this is clearly a Lie. In about mid-winter, when it had not yet been really Proper Cold, I expressed myself dissatisfied, and wished for some genuine nippiness, but this was clearly a Mistake. [I think maybe it’s time for the Emphatic Capitalisation to take a nap, though. This reads like the blurb on a 1950s ha’penny paperback: “Watch Amazed as our Charming and Beautiful Heroine Struggles to Escape the Evil Machinations of the Mustache-Twirling Villain!”] I’m pretty glad to see the back of winter. Soon: the triumphant return of Warmth!

In a spirit of celebration, I had lunch in the park this afternoon, on the surreptitiously damp grass. (Surreptitious because it doesn’t feel damp when you check it, or when you sit, but when you stand up, your trousers are all unfortunate-looking.) It’s so lovely, though. All sunshine and green grass and blue sky and all those stereotypically lovely things.

I think my favourite thing, though, (and it’s a tough call, I’m pretty thoroughly appreciative of all of the various things about Hyde Park, from it’s Londony name right through to the fact that some fantastic person once decided that there ought to be fairy lights in those great fig trees) is the office people basking in patches all over the place. I like the little groups or people chatting and looking excited to be outside, and the people sitting up and eating their lunch, looking for all the world like 35 year old first graders with lunchboxes, but most of all I love the individual people who sprawl entirely flat on the ground.

This can be done either prone or supine, but for maximum effect, no part of the body should be in any way raised off the grass, and the whole body should be spread out like a completely-asexual starfish. Obviously it’s important to exercise caution in the wearing of skirts, but the really important thing is to achieve that look of devil-may-care oblivion, as if one had been dropped from a great height and landed, ragdoll-like, across as much ground as possible.

I don’t know why I enjoy the sprawling of these office-dwellers and attorneys as much as I do, but I suppose it’s probably the fact that they look so relieved to have escaped into the sunshine. It becomes suddenly clear that these are not, in fact, office dwellers and attorneys, but kids who’ve been turned into grownups, and are forced to spend most of their playtime in offices or cunningly disguised as serious attorneys. This is a terrible fate for any erstwhile seven year old.

All this loveliness gives me my annual urge to go to Floriade on a solo tulip quest, which I seem to somehow miss out on every year. I was under the impression that, being as how it was on just before the thesis due-date, this year would be no exception, but I’ve come up with a cunning plan (or Cunning Plan, even). If (and only if) I’ve managed to get the first draft of my thesis entirely done on time (I’ll have to look up the dates), I shall go. I’ll have the middle of the week off (Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday), which is delightfully off-peak for accommodation prices, and if I print my draft out, and also take my laptop, I can quest down to Canberra and proofread in the watery Canberra sunshine. This will (hopefully) be pretty awesome, you guys! I wonder how much it would cost? And if it will turn out to be in any way practicable? I do hope so.