Many years ago, when our children were pre-school, and CBBC ,cbeebies, the cartoon channel and digital television were just TV mogul’s pipe dreams, we used to resort to recording what meagre offerings terrestial TV sent our way, and the kids would watch stuff again (and again) when there was nothing on live.   Amongst other things, this accounts for our ability, even now, to recite most of the dialogue from (the original, Gene Wilder version of) Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory….

One of the more obscure delights to emerge from the VHS machine at this time was a 1936 MGM Happy Harmonies cartoon which told of a band of subterranean elves whose job it was to add the colours of spring to the world each year, and how they fought an epic (and somewhat chaotic) battle with resurgent winter before spring was finally sprung.

In our family folklore, this has always been referred to as “The Colours of the World” although having just searched it out on YouTube (is there anything you can’t find on YouTube?) we were surprised to see it’s actually called “To Spring”.   And every year, when spring falters and our eccentric climate stumbles back into winter, the cry goes up “It’s like the colours of the world!”.

That cry is starting to sound a little worn right now, as spring 2010 splutters and falters and….well, lets just hope things are about to improve.   Easter weekend lived up to it’s reputation for meteorlogical variability, but the forecast for later this week is looking promising, and the long term forecast for April looks typical, if not actually great.   Most things on the nursery and in the garden have got buds just itching to burst, so surely any day now we’re going to see a splendid spring, aren’t we?

And if you have 9 minutes 39 seconds to spare….

This entry was posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 20:27 and is filed under Life on the nursery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.