AN EASTER

The etymology of Easter is, apparently, obscure.
Based on the last month or so's experience, let me hazard my own guess.
Easter. (n.) The time of easterly winds.
There's a lot behind that.
First, it has been the season of log fires. Needed, because, even with the heating going full blast in a leaky old house like ours, we've still had to thaw the marrow beside a blaze of our own ash logs. Outside has needed true valour for any sustained venture. And a bonfire, to keep warm. The winds have blown unstopped by any natural barrier from the Urals, or perhaps even further east, and unhindered by any nod of decency to the calendar, which long ago suggested they resume their westerly prevailing heading, rather then freezing us all to death with their current unbroken easterly trend. In desperation at one point, and much to the chagrin of Missus major and Missus minor, I lit the woodburner with the leaky chimney. I now have stage four lung cancer. Still, it warmed us through the dense blue cloud of woodsmoke. A family that coughs together, stays together. It's an ill wind.
Next, the calendar has taunted us as would-be gardeners. Despite all planting predictions, the vegetable garden lies still barren. Shirley, my oracle on matters horticultural, advises even now, "give it another week". Unable to resist, I've planted out first early spuds. Whether they will survive is questionable. But it's mid April for God's sake. That's global warming for you.
Animal behaviour has been retarded by approximately a month. Only in the last week have the hares started boxing. That was meant to happen in mad March remember? Only in this time have pigeons started pairing up, the cocks sidling up to the hens to proposition them, to be met in the main by a pecking rebuff. Only in the last few days have the horse chestnut buds turned sticky. Only very much of late have the hedgerows been singing with birds flirting and chattering in their pre homemaking phases.
I have made a couple of last desperate acts in the hope of seeing some sort of spring. The first is tree buying. You should, the old adage goes, only plant when there is an R in the month. That gives me only a couple more weeks to go for it. A year without a tree planted is a year wasted. Yesterday I purchased for the orchard another of my favourite greengages, and a red Williams pear. We have two old pear trees, but they are hard old culinary varieties. They crop well, but short of buying a press and making perry, I don't know what to do with them. You can only eat so many Pear Belle Helenes. A pear you can actually eat will be a very welcome addition to our five a day. I salivate at the thought of the many delicious uses the greengages will have. And by rights, since last year was so unspeakably poor, it should be a right old year for stone fruit, which has the habit of year on, year off.
I've also bought a fluted old birdbath as a centrepiece for the vegetable garden. "Revolting," was the Missus' verdict. She has a point. But it'll be useful filled with a soil / compost mix, for growing nasturtiums. I visualise them trailing attractively over the sides. They are a cheap trick to turn you, in the eyes of guests, from humble cook, to chef extraordinaire. Bung in a few of their flowers into a salad and Bob's your Uncle, and Michel Roux's your Aunty Who Can Cook.
I've realised that my gardening has a simple, though noble and single minded aim. If you can't eat it, it pretty much isn't worth growing in my book. And that does bring me to the consolations of the persistent, draught-finding winds which have chilled us. Such adverse conditions require, of course, an increase in calories. Say, a thousand or so a day? It perhaps explains my current addiction to walnuts and Brazil nuts, both of which probably have, in addition to their substantial calorie count, some vitamin or mineral or other just especially right for withstanding the current Siberian conditions.