April is a cruel month

It offers beautiful crystal clear, sun-bathed days with blossom cascading from the trees and shrubs and green shoots thrusting from the earth - yet today the wind-chill remains keen and somehow lowers the spirits, and now – at 8pm in the evening – the wind and rain lash my office windows savagely as if it were November. We need the rain but these are scarcely ‘sweet spring showers’. But, I tell myself, after such convulsions, more balmy days will follow to caress the skin and soothe the soul. The spiteful weather is part of the process and cannot be avoided. I have been to a party recently where a few of the guests were known to each other through their membership of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). I was struck by what warm, lasting friendships now flourish between them. People who have suffered and survive sometimes seem to achieve an approach to life which is like the reflective savouring of a single warm spring day. I admire their insight and discipline but realise that spiteful weather is part of the process.