(Image by congerdesign from Pixabay.) 
Spring, stolen by time, the subtle thief of youth; Spring the temptress, the enticer, the imp in the shadows, dancing between the tall trees, playing now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t, tripping and prancing off bark and trunk.
Spring the Puck of the four seasons, delighting in pranks, lightening spirits dulled by months of chill; Puck the loosener of winter’s grip on our souls.
Spring the elusive, the seemingly-never-coming who suddenly is there; look at me, see? I sing and I soothe. I told you I’d return. And you breathe again, as the shrubs seem to yawn and stretch as the sap emerges tentatively from slumber to peek over Spring’s parapet.
And relief falls off tree and branch as tiny shoots of green appear wherever the imp has danced, the harbinger of warm and hot, the consigner of the cold and the frigid to the wastes to where the winter limps away, defeated by the sun.
And life springs from earth like moss on dead wood.
The last of winter’s oranges are wrinkling in the basket on the kitchen table. Strange how well, and how long, an orange keeps its sweet juiciness even as its skin withers. Nature is kind to the fruit, and the fading ones do not deserve to be ignored or discarded. Like people who grow old, as the colour fades from their hair and the skin creases and folds, the richness within is greater than it was in the younger years when hair was auburn and cheeks flush with exuberant youth. Don’t discard that withering orange that you’ve used for its zest; the grating away of its outer protection works a bit of magic within it; the flavour intensifies and sweetens even more. That’s the juice you want in the middle of the hot Spring day.
Is it really six months since you wore a T-shirt, put your sandals on? Since you lit the braai fire at six and sat out back till eleven, with not a thought for need of jacket or scarf; since the bees buzzed around lavender and Thai basil, and you plucked those preening, fat tomatoes for the pasta sauce while the cat rolled in the sand at your feet, embracing the sunshine.
Four years and four winters have passed since I wrote the above paragraphs. Chai, the cat who was lolling at my feet that spring day, had to leave us only a few months later. In time, we drove out to the animal shelter and were led out to a large cage-like penitentiary which seemed to me to be a cat jail. In a bunk at the back, a beautiful smoky-grey cat with white points and black mascara’d eyes lay sleeping and looked up as Di approached. She picked her up and brought her to me. She knew in an instant she would be my cat.
Her name is Sky, named not for any blue but for a cloudy Karoo day. I thought she looked exceptional, as rare as that kind of day in the Karoo. She sat on top of a wall next to me and purred and stared into my eyes with intense feline love. At that moment, a little marmalade tabby leapt over a fence to our left and onto the wall, and she and Sky licked each other and pronked. The tabby, whose name is now Bobo, was putting on an opportunistic charm offensive, and it worked.
I bailed them out of the slammer and our garden was soon their spring home. Now they bask beneath the mission olive trees that have grown taller than the house. Both missions have delivered a bounteous harvest, and the last of the olives dropped only last week. August. Astonishing.
I cured and bottled about 500 of the best of them and they’re lingering in olive oil and Rozendal vinegar with orange peel, whole garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs for company. The orange trees — a Seville and a navel — were less abundant than usual, but are already covered in blossom buds for what looks like being a stronger season next winter. By then, if the house market picks up, we hope to have sold and moved back to Cape Town. It sure is taking time.
The surprise of the season just ended is that the hibiscus I planted last summer has survived the frosts and is full of new growth, and even a bloom. People shook their heads and said a hibiscus won’t survive our winter. Well, there it is. I hadn’t even covered it with sacking, as I do the bougainvillea every winter.
I planted rosemary early on, and they are massive now. All of these herbs will make their way into my kitchen as the days and weeks go by, and you’ll be finding them in my recipes and garnishing food in my photos.
Ah thyme; what to make of the passing of thyme? My thyme almost invariably passes, to use the currently preferred term for “die”, as we used to say. Mind you, thyme is not, for me, as dire as sage. Almost every sage plant I’ve ever put into the soil has glared at me and swiftly passed into whatever netherworld the ghosts of dead sage lurk.
My herbs come and go, as is their wont. All of my veterans have gone, though I’ve finally managed to get a strong oreganum plant to show some muscle. New thyme and marjoram (I think, unless it’s a low-slung oreganum) are holding their own, but the sage died, as sage does. Somehow the kapokbos struggles on in its forgotten pot, diehard wild herb that it is.
Puck must be hopping around in the back yard somewhere, new shoots sprouting where his feet have touched the bark. And with every bud I see on every bush, whether rose or hydrangea, pomegranate or quince, I picture the prize that awaits, the unfurling bloom and the beauty it holds.
But the joy longer waited for is the greater joy, and the pot awaits the ministrations of the cook and the herbs he brings into the kitchen. To Spring, to Life. L’chaim. DM