Ah yes it's spring again.

Ah yes it's spring again.

Oh yes it's spring again. Cue the street festivals, trips to the local garden centre in search of tulips, rummaging around the attic for photos and family albums, dusting shelves and neglected window sills, spring cleaning, plumping up sleepy cushions and venturing out into the big, wide world with a whistle and smile.

Thankfully the winter blues have now turned a distinct shade of yellow and orange with dark green coating those frozen tree branches. Everything looks good now. In fact it's beautiful in Manor House and may well be the same where you're living. This is the time for opening the living room windows and just inhaling the air for a few golden seconds. There is a sudden awareness that no longer do we have to be trapped inside the claustrophobic darkness of winter.

And winter itself wasn't quite as bad as we thought it was going to be. We could still watch Strictly Come Dancing on the BBC because that made us feel  good as well. It was rather like having a ballroom in your living room, glittering and glitzy celebrities tripping the light fantastic, not caring one iota about the final result and just wanting to entertain the public no matter how foolish they must have felt at the time.

So here it is spring. Tonight the clocks go forward which means we'll all wind our clocks and watches forward and our bodies will try to make a suitable re- adjustment. Time waits for no man even though that does sound blatantly sexist. Anyway tomorrow morning we'll all get up and subconsciously dread that loss of an hour in bed or maybe you're an early riser in which case you'll probably think the day is inordinately long. And you still haven't eaten your breakfast and it's now time to crunch that first piece of toast and jam. Oh how utterly confusing.

Now let's see. Let's have a look at those blinds or curtains in the living room. Now it's time to get out the vaccum cleaner and give the whole of your home a thorough spring clean. It looks as though the whole world is finally emerging from its winter hibernation, bleary eyed but relieved. We can finally get down to the housework or indulge in a spot of shopping. A bit of retail therapy never did anybody any harm.

This morning in Manor House the weather is just stunningly gorgeous. The yellow sunshine is beating down purposefully from the blameless blue sky. The blackbirds and gulls have yet to be spotted in that graceful swoop across the rooftops rather like that waltz on Strictly Come Dancing. It is an uplifting and therapeutically heart warming sight and you can't help but be enchanted by the whole vista. Time to wave goodbye to winter and it's time for spring with its bumper harvest of Easter eggs and Pesach matzos in a couple of weeks time.

It may be approaching the end of March but I think March has given a fairly respectable account of itself. We've had one or two biting cold snaps, a couple of snowflakes which promptly melted in the rain and that fine sleet which didn't really go anywhere. All things considered March has behaved with a well mannered decorum and admirable restraint. It could have been rude and obnoxious but the winter months seemed to have passed fairly quickly without any real incident.

Deep in the heart of the English countryside farmers are gathering the sheep and cows together while the patchwork quilt of rolling fields and sluggish meadows yawn and stretch with a lazy and lethargic air about them. At this time of the year, the early morning mists quickly lift and nature shortly comes to terms with the changing seasons.

It's time for those hens and chickens to project their voices at full volume. Suddenly they're surrounded by the lush green grass, acres of grass liberally sprinkled with dancing daisies and all of the pomp and pageantry of early Spring. Now I know this may sound excessively lyrical but you can't help but be astounded by those tiny buds and that first cuckoo. There is a sweet lyricism about Spring that winter and autumn could only look on with envy at.

Here in Manor House, everything looks perfect and serene. There is an indefinable loveliness and goodness about life. The great poets of the 18th century would have had the most apt of metaphors, similes, adverbs and proverbs for Saturday in Manor House. The sun is just glowing and here to spend the rest of the day, It's roughly 63 out there and if you look closely the cherry blossom has now come out to play in some fabulous display of colour and artistry. If only I had a painting easel, a couple of brushes, a palette of reds, blues, greens and yellows and just a small jar of water. If only I could paint or draw as well as those very talented people on that Sunday tea time programme on the BBC. If only Hilary Clinton had been allowed to become the next President of the United States or Jeremy Corbyn told to just give up on politics and never darken anybody's corridors again. Oh it's all hypothetical and guesswork.

I suspect that the Woodberry Wetlands reservoir looks out of this world. I can only imagine that those yachts on the water are bobbing up and down playfully while around them people wander around for hour after hour. This has to be the perfect day for looking out across North London and just losing yourself in some poetic daydream where the sun always shines. This has to be the idyllic weather for swans to strut their funky staff, nature to be ever so slightly flirtatious and the world to kick off its shoes. The coats are slowly disappearing, the hoods now surplus to requirements and even the pullovers are no longer needed. It feels as though we've all been released out into the open air after that oppressive winter confinement. No longer does everything seem to be bleak, dreary, dull and doleful.

In Manor House this morning even the advertising hoardings looked brighter and cheerier while all around us there is a keen sense of hope and anticipation. The pigeons are still on the hunt and prowl, pecking away endlessly at the pavements in the hope of finding food. But quite clearly they're wasting their time. Nobody is about to drop several loaves of bread on the ground just to satisfy their insatiable appetites so maybe they should fly off to somewhere where bread is on the menu.

For a number of years a group of tramps in shabby clothes huddle around a bench deep in discussion about what ever they talk about  during the day. They sit on a bench before pottering around the streets and then hanging around quite contentedly next to Manor House station. It reminds you of some Dickensian street scene or something you've always seen but were never able to understand.

Down in Manor House station, it was very much business as uusal, A gentleman in a dark blue London Transport uniform looked slightly pre-occupied. Maybe he was reflecting on England's narrow 1-0 defeat in Germany, or looking forward to the new cricket season, perhaps hoping that Sir Andy Murray can retain the Wimbledon trophy. Perhaps he was looking forward to his Saturday night of fish and chips with a swift pint of lager just to wash everything down. He could have been looking forward to that pub quiz or that joyous karaoke. Nothing like a good, old fashioned sing song. It could be that he just wants to go home as quickly as possible because there might be something gripping on the TV tonight.

Meanwhile at home it's all getting very heated and argumentative again. That Scottish politician Nicola Sturgeon is rather hot and bothered about nothing of any global significance. The rumour is that Sturgeon is not a happy woman because all of that kerfuffle in the wake of the Scottish independence referendum has blown up again for public consumption. It's hard to tell what's going on. Apparently a huge cross section of the Scottish people want the whole thing to be done again. It almost feels as this current political news agenda is some deliberately early April Fools Joke designed to give us a good old laugh.

Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, it has to be said, is gradually getting the hang of  being Prime Minister. True, this has to be the most stressful and unpleasant period of her time in office but that's what it says in the job description. Still, she  looks like a downtrodden sixth form teacher  trying desperately to keep her class in some kind of order.  The whole charade of this pro Brexit aftermath is beginning to get on our nerves. Or maybe we enjoy being subjected to this relentless hot air and babbling rhetoric that just seems to go on and on rather like some boring House of Commons discussion about the price of brandy at the bar and that infernal noise at Prime Minister's questions.

After the horrific events at Westminster things seem to returning to normality. The pigeons at Manor House and Stamford Hill are now as hungry and ravenous as ever. The tramps still slouch around the bench outside the newsagents with a rather torn and weatherbeaten air about them. They then all meet up with each other for what seems like the most secretive meeting you'll ever see. It is hard to know whether you should sympathise with them or just stare at them with utter contempt. Are they hatching some bizarre plot for world domination? You're inclined to think that perhaps they only have themselves to blame for their dire predicament. But then you realise that this is the existence they're content with and would never dream of an alternative lifestyle.

Here we are on the first Saturday of spring and with the atrocity at Westminster still fresh on our minds it is time for sober reflection. Our hearts and minds go out deeply to the families and friends whose lives were ripped out and then totally wrecked by events they had no control over whatsoever. London is still a city in mourning and grief, the dark cloak of terrorism covering a thousand sins. But none will just give in, throw in the towel and just relinquish our hold on our way of life.

And yet London will remain open and will never be deterred or beaten. London will continue to do its lively trade in souvenirs, hold open its doors in its palatial hotels, ride on the new Routemaster buses, drop off  splendidly at Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, walk through its wide, spacious and handsome parks, shop in the West End and then in the afternoon cruise on a boat down to Hampton Court.

 Londoners will eat in their cosmopolitan restaurants, go for a spin on the London Eye and  then watch a West End musical. Londoners will dig their heels in and refuse to succumb to the iron fist of terrorism. London will do it her way and behave in the way it's always conducted itself. London will have its individuality, ravens at the Tower of London, the Changing of the Guard and, above all, it will just carry on valiantly before falling asleep on each other's shoulder on a London tube train. It will have its buskers in Covent Garden, buskers playing the concertina inside the London tube train station and then it'll rest its head and do the same thing again day after day. Because that's what Londoners have a natural flair for, never surrendering because that might be an admission of weakness. London is determined to move on and surge ahead marching towards our destination

So it is that Saturday is now moving into the afternoon, the sun still shining incessantly and satisfyingly over this wonderful corner of suburban London. There is continuity and leisureliness that Saturdays have always been renowned for. Of course the shops and department stores are open all hours and working feverishly into the early hours of the evening. We will drink formidably from the cup of good living, dance the night away and then wake up on Sunday morning with the greatest hangover of all time. But we'll never apologise for our boozy excesses because Manor House and the nearby West End are just doing fine thankyou. Yes folks spring has arrived and all in the world are having the time of our lives. It's spring and time to put the clocks forward. Anybody for a meal in Chinatown. Now that's a brilliant idea.