Writes of Spring: Spring Nature Diary 2020
“Spring comes … as though this island were its natural home, as though this small green platform on the edge of the Atlantic was the original spawning ground of the season.”
Laurie Lee
The first day of spring marks a turning point in the year, bringing the promise of new life and longer warmer days.
Nature writing has long celebrated the arrival of this much anticipated season: Dorothy Wordsworth, walking in Somerset on the 20 March 1798, comments, ‘No green trees, only the hedges are budding, and looking very lovely’; Derek Jarman, in his Dungeness journal, notes that on 21 March 1989, ‘Deep in the middle of the woods, in the most secret glade, primroses are blooming’; and Melissa Harrison, describing what spring means to her writes, in 2016, ‘For me it’s snowdrops, fat black buds on the ash trees and the blackbird’s first song that tell me spring’s arrived’.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council, which is part of UK Research and Innovation, funds world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of subjects: history, archaeology, digital content, philosophy, languages, design, heritage, area studies, the creative and performing arts, and much more. Writes-of-Spring-2020