Spring points us to the Resurrection

I live on 86 of the last few hundred acres of countryside separating Edinburgh from the next town over. My home is owned by the National Trust for Scotland, so it is safe from field-munching developers. Sadly, it may soon be the only greenery in an encroaching desert of urban sprawl. For the time being, however, the meadows beyond our garden walls flourish, populated still by goldfinches and bunny rabbits.

Spring comes early to Edinburgh. We get our first wildflowers in January when the crocuses and snowdrops first appear. By mid-February the little white bells of the snowdrops fill a dell in our woods, inspiring my husband’s remark, “It looks as though a snowman has sneezed.” He says this every February, and now I make him say it immediately, to get it over with. One Valentine’s Day, when we were particularly short of funds, he awoke before I did and collected a bouquet of snowdrops. Last year on Valentine’s Day, when I was in Toronto, Mark sent me a single bedraggled snowdrop from our woods. It was scotch-taped to a valentine featuring a sneezing snowman.