Spring is officially coming along nicely. Everyone always likes to talk about how you can tell it is spring and as the great Miles Kington once put it "a single article about how to tell it's summer does not a summer make". He was talking about Summer but I think the point can equally be put about Spring.

In Summer you are supposed to look for Swallows. Definitely plural. Just seeing one, as the adage almost gives, "don't mean a thing." I tend to use flies. I don't know much about ornithology. And as rushing about hedgerow looking for swallows always seems to hamper my springs, I tend now to look for flies. It is just as accurate. And in the same way seeing one of them doesn't help you at all.

But what of Spring? Well traditionally you look for snowdrops and bluebells I think. But that doesn't really work for me either. I find the easiest method is to carefully look at the sun. If you can look at the sun in the morning then it's Spring or Autumn. If the sun is too bright to look at then it's Summer. And if it's dark it's winter.

This morning a big orangey ball was hanging over the skyline and I thought, "well it's time for an article on Spring then".