It was minus one in Berwick this morning. A heavy frost covered the land. Walking in the garden with the dogs this morning I noticed our magnolia tree was flowering. It is as if Spring has finally begun to awake from its brooding sleep, unlocking with some private incommunicable note of triumph, into a burst of colour and another cycle of life. The architrave of the sky creeps earlier and later towards light as the sun rises higher each day to cover the shivering earth with fingers of warmth. The tangled bare branches of sleeping trees and bushes are rendered into bead strings of buds, which are about to burst forth in a blaze of colour. Wattle trees are puffed out in a thousand yellow flowers and golden daffodils nod thier heads in the slight breeze. How wonderful Spring is with its bright colours and blossom. It is almost as if Spring is chasing the winter darkness from the land.