April dawns and all is well in Stamford Hill, Routemaster buses and cherry blossom.

April dawns and all is well in Stamford Hill. Routemaster buses and cherry blossom.

Here we are, a couple of days into April and everything looks just fine. In Stamford Hill everything has, quite literally, come up in the most gorgeous show of pink. Outside Stamford Hill's Sainsbury's two of the most beautiful trees have put on their best party dress or suit. Here in Stamford Hill two of the prettiest, attractive and most breathtakingly exquisite cherry blossom trees have come out to play just in time for the Easter and Passover(aka Pesach) holidays. What perfect timing.

Now for those of us who follow the great Jewish customs and traditions this has to be one of the most pleasant times of the year. After a winter of darkness, dankness, hibernation and endless evenings of reflective contemplation it's time to throw away those stifling jumpers, those increasingly annoying layers of clothing and do something in the great outdoors.

And so I find myself looking out across to those cherry blossom trees. How does Spring do it year after year? It must have found that rare knack for just showing off, of exhibiting all of its finest of finery, of looking so refined, so well proportioned and just stunningly well turned out. We all know about the passing of the seasons but when April gets going it just doesn't stop giving and sharing.

For a few brief moments this morning I was just blown away by the picturesque beauty of it all, the stately stillness, the almost rural splendour of it all. And yet this was not the country at all and you had to look twice just to make sure you weren't imagining it. It was rather like stopping at one of those remote country railway stations where hanging baskets of nasturtiums, lobellias, laburnums and poinsettia dab their paint brush of many colours into  nature's tapestry of multi shades.

Sometimes you've just got to take your hat off because April has laid out her most mouth watering spectacle and, certainly in Stamford Hill, the chances are that things will get progressively better and better and, at the moment at least, it seems to verge on perfection. Today the cherry blossom trees just stood there proudly guarding the entrance to Sainsbury's rather like those doormen who stand outside those Park Lane five star hotels in the West End.

There they remain branches and twigs swelling richly under an emotional outpouring of pink, a huge pageant of colour, a carnival of pink that spread across the whole of the supermarket entrance rather like a colour supplement Sunday magazine or some very grand looking umbrella that you'd expect to find at a race course. Pink cherry blossom had arrived in Stamford Hill and for a moment you were almost overcome with that good to be alive feeling, that indefinable sense of achievement that mountaineers get when they plant a flag on Mount Everest. How good it felt to be among one of  nature's finest guardsmen.

Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the first blue bus I'd ever seen. Now over the years most of us have grown accustomed to that re-assuring sight of the red London bus. For years the Routemaster bus has adopted an air of supreme authority over London's increasingly hectic roads. Then towards the end of the 1970s the Routemaster was ousted, toppled from its perch and Britain welcomed another kid on the block, an unwanted intruder that most of the nation took an age to get used to.

To all outward appearances it looked big and cumbersome, a double decker monstrosity that looked as if it had been ill designed or might have been missing something in its construction. Now that bus has just been joined by one of its oldest friends, a long lost acquaintance it thought it had lost touch with.  In fact there's been something of a friends reunion because- guess what- the old Routemaster is back in the big time. Ladies and Gentlemen let me give you the new, updated Routemaster, same shape, same design, same old same old and all of those lovely contours and configurations that made it such a cracking bus while you were growing up.

In the original Routemaster there was that heart stopping point when you had to rush after it, trying in vain at times to get onto the bus without risking life or limb. Many a Routemaster passenger must have taken out life insurance before embarking on this red lion of a bus. You would chase after it frantically, leaping onto the open deck and praying that your courageous efforts would be suitably rewarded with a seat on those tartan seats. It was one of the most challenging modes of transport ever invented but how we loved it.

Then there were those wonderful light bulbs that seemed to be permanently fixed and that quaint little storage area for children's push chairs or prams. Whatever happened to those? Then the bus would do its best to make you feel as though you were travelling on some magical, mystical carpet and into a scented land of butchers shops selling thick, juicy steaks or Marks and Spencer with their vast choice of clothes, food and commercial necessities.

Suddenly the Routemaster would give us its famous musical accompaniments. There was the low rumbling under your feet as the bus built up its very own head of steam. Then you'd suddenly hear a low, humming sound under your feet which made you feel as if your ears were being subjected to a church or synagogue choir. Then the bus sounded as if it was being wound up like a key or a car engine was being revved up. The Routemaster had charm, charisma and personality, a real sense of value that may never be equalled.

But today the Routemaster has now given us a blue bus. It's a blue bus, opposed to a yellow and green bus with orange polka dots on it. A blue bus with a blue logo and blue paint and nothing but blue. It almost seemed like an insult to the red bus. There must be a group of bus enthusiasts in London who must be outraged, mortally offended, simply purple with rage at what must seem sheer lunacy. What an outrageous affront to those who insist on the historically red London Routemaster buses, a rejection of everything they'd held so dear. It was just preposterous. Now what happened to my councillor. It was time  to put your complaint in writing or a carefully written e-mail. How dare they change the colour of our London buses without either public consultation and permission?

True, the rest of  Britain employ a whole treasure trove of multi coloured mini buses with their own local clientele but blue buses in London. It's a radical departure from the norm and totally offensive to an eye that had grown up with red buses. You could hardly hold back your repressed fury but maybe that would be pointless and childishly silly because who cared what the bus looked like as long as it got to its destination.

Then a flock of persistent and persevering pigeons gathered together for a G2 summit or some industrial protest march against the lack of any bread on the ground. But today was different. Today was bread day for the pigeons. Oh yes. It was time to blow the trumpets, ring the bells and just rejoice  because those pigeons were all ready to pounce on a veritable bakery of bread. This was exciting folks. You've never seen anything like it. In the distant nesting grounds of Stamford Hill they'll be just besides themselves with unconfined joy, an idyllic sanctuary where pigeons just eat and eat.

Suddenly the pigeons swooped from everywhere as if they hadn't eaten for at least 10 years. You began to think of those lost tribes of birds who once suffered years of starvation and deprivation. And yet here they all were just tucking into their banquet of stale bread as if they hadn't been fed and had just been deliberately denied their daily sustenance. Wait until those birds get militant and take it to their town hall.

Still here ended one of those early days in April when the world and Stamford Hill was about to let itself go, celebrating the season's Spring festivals with wine, song and matzas. Soon they'll be charging along the Broadway like  those Notting Hill dancers on an August Bank Holiday. Only this time without the steel drums. Oh how we love the changing seasons.