If you are anything like me, and I sincerely wouldn’t wish that on anyone, you must be bouncing with joy that spring has finally sprung, and will keep on springing until we can finally put the jumpers away for the foreseeable.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like it’s been a long, dark, wet, and windy wait for the world to finally wake up from its sleepy bed. I desperately need to be teased away from my log burner, with which I have had a very deep and meaningful relationship since last October. We hit it off as soon as he arrived, and within minutes I took off my fleece and relaxed a little, before getting down to snuggling on the sofa to stare at him for hours on end. So much so, I nearly cancelled my Netflix subscription. But since he never sent me a Valentine’s Day Card, out relationship has waned, and now I am ready for outdoor activity with Mother Nature. I feel the urge to throw open my bi-fold doors, swing my dibber and kneeling pad in the air and sing The Hills are Alive.

Spring gives me so much joy. There’s an element of extra hope in the air, isn’t there? And urge to re-organise and plan for the future. My hope for this year is that I get back into my favourite room, which has been off-limits over the winter, as soon as possible. Yes! My garden! I have plenty of seeds to sow, and nothing gives me more pleasure than putting them into soil, watching them grow, potting them on, then letting them thrive. That really is planning a future, right? I’m also getting immense excitement from spotting things that sprout up in the garden unexpectedly, returning plants that I’d forgotten were there, or a random new addition carried by bird, wind, or magic.

Then there’s the pleasure of refreshing all the pots, sorting out the potting shed, dividing plants, re-addressing last year’s ideas, moving things around, and creating this year’s gardening goals. It’s like child’s play to me, following my nose, my imagination, and my vision. Hours will now be lost and loved as I potter. And since I’ve learned that you can never finish your gardening, you just have to enjoy the process, I have done just that. It’s a pleasurable process.

However, this time of year is not just for the gardening goals. It can also be about resetting life goals, those that you may never have fulfilled as a new year’s resolution. To be honest, the changing of seasons is much more significant to me than the changing of the calendar year. As Big Ben chimes us into a new year, I’m usually dreading I have months of dark nights, cold days and twenty-four-house carb cravings ahead of me!

Anyway, it’s here and I can hear Diana Ross in my head singing “I’m Coming Out” as I reorganise my cupboards, rewrite my to-do lists, and drop a couple of stone in an instant. Come on you lot, let’s get it done, let’s get it sorted and let’s get out again.