Lunchtime Holiday

Today is one of those glorious days when London becomes a holiday spot. It's sunny and 16C, and altough I took a good book out with me in my lunch break, I didn't read a page. It's warm, the London ubiquitous wind has died down and I found a little garden spot near the Spitalfields market with a stretch of daffodils in bloom and with magnolias with a bad hair day. I sat down and all I wanted to do was just sit. Simply sit and look at spring flowers.

I closed my eyes and sat in the sun, feeling the warmth on my skin for the first time this year. I felt my forhead slowly warming up, my face, my black work dress. It's so pleasant and warm I need to open my coat, and I think how we people are so much like plants, opening up our thick warm coats and shields to let the warmth in. Behind my closed eyes I can see a dull orange colour, which I vaguely remember from the last time I've sunbathed last summer. I thought this would never come again. It was near the sea, and just the thought of sunbathing near the sea suddenly relaxes me. I take my coat off.

I look at the flowers. The sun is lighting them almost as if they are lit from within, so they shine, translucent and deep yellow. This is backlighting, my favourite photographic effect. I promise myself I'll bring my camera and take pictures tomorrow in my lunch break. After all, people come from far and wide to see this city, and I almost forget its beauty, I almost forget to see it. I know, it's normal, when you see the same streets for years, to ignore them from habit.

And yet the spring brings novelty. The small green buds are also translucent in the sun, and against the deep shadows they shine like Christmass lights. All of a sudden, the bare branches, the bare buildings are decorated with the novelty of green. It's uneven and fresh and delicate, and it surprises me from day to day, budding, growing, sprouting tassles, opening flowers. The world, nature is changing, opening up, coming to life, and it takes me by surprise.

The winter has been harsh. Grey, very cold, dark, wet, snowy, sleepy and simply boring. Something about this winter has made me just want to hibernate: come back from work, go to bed. Early, snug, outside is dark and that's all there is to life. I used to pick myself up and do things, go out after work and sing, study, see people. No matter what weather, no matter what season, no matter how dark. Somehow this winter has quietened me down. I have discovered the joy of sleeping early and waking late, and a new dexterity at getting ready in 10 minutes in the morning.

Now, in the new found daylight and sunshine, even of relative warmth, I feel like a surprised bug. This is how a bug must be feeling after being numb for the whole winter, when the summer arrives: dazzled, blinded, startled, suspended in disbelief. I've been waiting for the spring, counting days, looking up the number of minutes the daylight increases every day - it's 2 minutes, by the way - but I haven't expected it to actually arrive. And now I am slowly moving my antennae, numb still, but hoping it will be on time for me to register it's here, before the cold and the grey snatch it away from me again.

There's something about sunlight and warmth that makes me open up. My coats open up, my eyes, my spirits soar, and my imagination bounces from under layers of winter residues. I suddenly remember things I could be doing, places I'd like to visit, even my favourite London places which I haven't been to in ages, like the streets of Notting Hill and Holland Park which are a delight in spring. I want to see people again. I remember friends I haven't spoken to in a while. Don't ask me where they have been - it seems they never call unless I do. But then I forgive them that. If no-one makes the phone-call, we'd never know anyone.

I bought a bunch of daffodils for £1 and they sit on my desk now like a sorry bunch of spring onions. I can see them surreptitiously getting more yellow, from one hour to the next, and ever so slightly opening up. It's my favourite thing. Opening daffodils, and summer dresses. And summer holidays, and taking pictures. Ok, I have a lot of favourite things. See, the spring enthusiasm is starting to take over.

There's something about this lunchtime holiday that makes me feel grateful. I'm grateful for the warmth, I'm grateful for the flowers, I'm grateful for the green buds and the silly magnolia. I'm even grateful to have an hour's break at lunch.