Spring Is In The Air

"It's lovely and warm sitting next to the French windows while the sun is shining in" Bubbles said, contentedly. "Maybe we could go out into the garden and see if any flowers have woken up yet now the weather is so nice?"

"Well, it's not officially Spring yet" Scary answered with a smile. "That won't be until about the middle of March at the time of something called the 'Vernal Equinox' - that's the first day in the year when the day and night are of equal length.

But maybe some things have decided to start growing early. Shall we go outside and see if we can find any?" he asked all the other teddy bears.

"Oooh! Yes please!" they all shouted at once. Then there was a scramble for the door and they all ran out into the garden, even Bubbles!

But, as soon as they were outside, they noticed that, although the sun was shining brilliantly, it was actually very, very cold in the open air! "Brrrr!" they all complained. "Surely nothing will be growing outside in this!"

Undeterred, Scary suggested that all they needed to do was to pop back indoors and grab their warm, woolly scarves, and any hats and mittens that they had, then they could wrap up and go back outside.

Also, as an extra incentive, he said that all of them could have hot drinks and biscuits when they came back in! That was just the sort of thing that made the idea of going out in the cold just about bearable….."bearable" - get it??

In no time at all the bears had all wrapped up in their warmest clothes and were outside looking round the garden. "See if you can spot any plants growing," said Scary. "There should be some bulbs beginning to show above ground now."

And, sure enough, when they actually really, really looked, they all saw little tiny signs of growing things. Tommy found a lovely white snowdrop - it was nearly taller than him! It is only a little flower though, it's just that Tommy is even littler!

Then there were flowers just unfurling on the primrose - very pale lemon petals but shining brightly against the dark soil in the flower bed. James found some green shoots coming through the soil in one of the borders but he didn't know what they were.

He asked the others if any of them knew. But none of them did. "We'll have to keep an eye on them," said Scary "and see what they turn into - and maybe check in our flower book when we go back inside."

The bears' favourite spring flower is the crocus. There were lots of them out in the lawn and they were all sorts of pretty colours. There were white ones, and yellow ones, creamy-coloured ones and pale mauve ones. They looked too delicate to be out in this very cold weather. It's amazing how flowers can survive such temperatures….. the bears were pretty sure that they wouldn't be able to manage!

After they had been outside for a while and, despite being excited seeing all the new growth in the garden, they were beginning to get a little bit cold. Now was the time to go back inside for their hot drinks and biscuits, and get out the flower book to try and find out what the mysterious green shoots were that James had found.

And planning began on what they could do to celebrate this strange new Vernal Equinox they'd just found out about - it changes slightly each year, but will be on the 20th March this year.

Perhaps you will have a nice sunny day soon when you can have a look around your garden, or go for a walk in the park, or the countryside, and see how many buds and flowers you can spot. Just a few weeks till Spring! Hurrah!