Salad summer days or is it a spring sunshine fiesta?

Salad summer days - or is it a spring sunshine fiesta?

This morning most of Britain, if not all of Britain, woke up this morning to something they must have thought they'd never see again but privately believed they would see eventually. After one of the hardest and most snow bound of winters in recent years, Britain has got its warm sunshine back rather than its country which has become an almost loathsome political mantra. Not that EU backing track again.

 But yesterday and today in our fair, green and pleasant land of Blighty, spring has been replaced by a victorious burst of glorious summer sunshine albeit temporarily or maybe permanently. Then again the sun coud be here for the duration and the summer of 1976 is about to set up its headquarters again every day, consistently, astonishingly and quite remarkably. Maybe this is just some temporary mirage designed to lull Britain into a false sense of security. Perhaps it's just teasing us, playing fun and games with our minds and by the end of this month the country will be bombarded by hailstones, thunder and lightning and just for a good measure, another wheelbarrow load of snow. Surely not though.

Still, here we are rapidly approaching the end of April and your heart is well and truly lifted  when you see all of those yellow tulips, the fresh green grass in local parks and recreation grounds finally set free of all of those restrictive and repressive white patches of snow. At one point they quite literally covered every pavement, every road and street, hill and valley, meadow and dale on Britain's rich and historic ground. This is the beginning of something new and encouraging, an auspicious omen rather than some demoralising inevitability.

So it's time to get out there and do something proactive, engaging in constructive activities, mowing the lawn, getting rid of those clogging, stifling weeds, pruning the roses, cleaning the car to such a sparkling state of perfection that you could almost imagine that it's June and July which quite clearly it is not but you can see where I'm coming from. It's time to venture into the country, walk along deserted country lanes, take in the invigorating air of late April, listen to the cuckoos, robins and chaffinches in their yearly melodic choirs and then stare up at the trees still patiently waiting for their spring green canopy.

And yet this year mid to late April is doing a pretty good impersonation of June, July and August. Here in Manor House, that gentle and leafy North London suburb there is a feeling that the sunshine may well last for perhaps a week, just a few days and then take itself off to another European city or town where the welcome will be just as warm. You can sense that 1976 could be on the march again and by the beginning of May we'll all be heading for those balmy beaches where sweltering heatwaves will await us rather like a fanfare of trumpets awaiting royalty.

But summer's delicious pomp and pageantry could be ready to delight us with its traditional round of village fetes and strawberry picking in fields of prodigious harvest. Summer has bought itself a brand new wardrobe of clothes. Gone are the dull, black and monochrome shades of dingy greyness and now a siesta of yellows, red, oranges and whites are about to be launched on the City high streets, the rural idylls of Somerset and Kent while not forgetting the industrial powerhouses of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and Sunderland.

Everywhere in Britain there is a feeling that things are about to open up, ready for summer's street parades, Maypole dancing and farmers in combine harvesters wiping away the sweat from tired foreheads before settling down outside a timber beamed country pub for a cider or two. Hopefully Britain will finally shed all of its problems and complications, its frustrations and setbacks for three or four months of summer's sweetest perfumes and fragrances.

At the moment the spring cherry blossom has once again arrived and for those of us who suffer from hay fever this does represent a negative rather than a positive, a minor inconvenience for a while but not for long because that cherry blossom seems to be flying all over the place.  Now though everything around us looks so much healthier, lighter and brighter. It almost feels as though the weight of the world has been lifted from Britain's aching shoulders, that cumbersome drag that seems to go on for ever. But fear not we can almost see Dame Vera Lynn's blue birds on the white cliffs of Dover. All is well, outstandingly well.

Oh, for the seasonal changes and fluctuations, the warm fronts, the cold fronts, the air currents from varying directions, the weather forecasters who often get it right but, from time to time, completely misjudge the mood of the weather because they can never be sure of themselves with a hundred per cent certainty. How good are the certainties of life, the prolific possibilities that quite suddenly appear when we put on our first T-shirts and shorts of the year.

There is that thrilling sense of anticipation in the air, the realisation that the summer barbecue season is just around the corner. There is the beginning of the cricket season here in Britain, where broad shouldered batsmen with keen eyes and well varnished bats look forward to unveiling mighty, lofted cover drives into the local marquee or tent. They will strike out with vicious, brutal but beguiling strokes off the back or front foot and then clobber the ball for six or four in the hope that the ball will land in some gurgling river next to the Lake District.

Yes folks the cricket season is with us again shortly and in every town, every pretty cricket strip in sleepy market towns, the bakers and blacksmiths will pull on their pads and attempt quite magnificently to crack the ball into the next county. Then the local mayor will grace us with their presence, thick chains glinting on those sun kissed boundaries before another heady over is ready to be delivered.

The bowlers walk slowly back to yet more expectant fans, rubbing that red ball vigorously once again because that's what bowlers have always done since time immemorial. They stride towards the pavilion, carefully measure the length of their stride before turning on their heel quite sharply and heading for the crease, charging in like a bull from an adjacent field and then surging forward purposefully, accelerating furiously and then exploding in a whirl of arms and stamp of feet.

Inside the tents the officials, umpires, dignitaries and the corporate crowd of smart jacketed gentlemen swap tales of long forgotten days of Len Hutton, Denis Compton and Geoff Boycott. Cricketers do like to indulge in the romance of cricket's past. Those were the days when the appearance of a helmet on a batsmen's head would have been regarded as sacrilege. Now though cricket has adopted a completely different mindset.

Now the game is shortened, abbreviated and punctuated with a full stop, semi colon and the familiar exclamation mark. Cricket observes the rules of the one day slog over limited overs, the transient thrill of the T20 blast, the night and day exertions of mid summer and floodlights in cricket grounds which means that the game of cricket can still be played at 10.30 in the evening rather than be being stopped abruptly for bad light.

So then. There you are. April is still playing its early games of hide and seek and hop scotch with that playful innocence that only April knows only too well. The buds are on the trees, the spring equinox is well and truly up and running and the resurgence is all around us. The gardeners are clipping the hedges and bushes with a meticulous thoroughness while the ebb and flow of spring's lively rhythms resonate in our minds sawing and drilling to their hearts content. Oh to be in England in spring's first awakening.