Small acts of spring

There are undeniable chinks in winter's armour this week. Last night I couldn't sleep but my reward for insomnia was the incessant gentle sound of fertile frogs croaking in the pond below the open window. This has been going on for a few nights now but so far no frogspawn. We saw lots of spawn in a pond up on the moor yesterday where Nick did her press ups but we were beginning to wonder whether the males in our garden were singing in vain.....until this morning when the water was boiling with the bubbles of that wondrous jelly and the frogs still tumbling in the weed - new life!

The crocuses are in bloom, little treats of purple & gold under the budding magnolia tree, closed up today against the damp mistiness but gaping wide open like smiles yesterday in the sun. The woods are full of bluebell shoots, pussy willow & catkins and soon the ferns will push through the leaf litter and unfurl their fronds towards the light. We always notice these things because, like everyone, we are always desperate for signs of spring after the long dark, cold months of winter but this year I feel like these things are nature's small acts of defiance. 

At the same time as these little hints of growth, life, strength and regeneration are appearing all around us Nick seems to be springing back to life too. She is feeling stronger, has virtually no pain and is energised in a way that's kind of hard to believe. A little run on the beach yesterday, a couple of bike rides in the last week and today we went out on our mountain bikes in the mist & mud of the Barle Valley. In between these activities she is busy with various projects (it's hard to keep up with her if I'm honest!!). It feels like the dark, gloomy season of cancer is slowly ebbing away like winter encountering the defiance of Spring. She realised this week that the symptoms of her enlarged liver pushing up against her diaphragm, which caused discomfort at night & and an irritating cough when talking, had been gone for weeks now! 
We also received more poignant & relevant words from our friend KVZ this week who told us about a trip she took through an area that had been ravaged by wild fire just a couple of years before and where beautiful flowers were thriving as a result of the destruction...

We are in no way counting our Easter chicks before they hatch, there is a long way to go of course, but we are certainly taking note of the changes happening all around us, positive little signs that there is hidden strength within and that it is doing its best to win over against the odds like those blue skies and green shoots.