Things in spring

1.  I have started a new kids' novel.  I felt despairing after my no-more-YA pronouncement; then I had more ideas for YA novels; but I returned to despair knowing I don't have the time to bring the ideas to life.  So I took my notebook on the train, and en route to work I wrote down any and every idea that entered my head, hoping that one of them would be for something shorter and more manageable.  One was.  It has grown legs, and now I'm seeing if it will be able to run and leap. 
2.  It's planting season.  If you'd told me ten years ago I'd develop into a mad keen gardener I would have sniffed and told you you must have the wrong person. My one failed attempted at growing basil (basil!  how hard could it be?!) convinced me I was a brown-thumb.  Enter husband with mushroom-compost-toting abilities, a bunch of newspapers and giant pots, and presto, a (food) garden has been born.  (Only food - the rest looks like the overgrown jungle it is).  For the last few weeks every meal has contained our potatoes, broad beans, spinach, herbs, onions, spring onions, leeks, and the garlic isn't far away (Doust, are you paying attention?!).  The Good Life indeed.
3.  I've been cycling around the lakes in my suburb, delighted by the baby ducks and swans, the swarming insects in the trees, the abundant blue of Perth spring skies.  By the fact of being able to cycle at all, given that I couldn't for so long.  The joy of skimming over footpaths, bending into curves, pedalling through the warm air, feeling strength returning.
4.  John Lennon would have been 70 today, and I didn't need Google to remind me of the date.  He talked before he died about how life would be long, that he would have decades of creativity ahead of him.  A reminder to waste no time - creatively or otherwise.