Seasons...

As the spring flowers unfurl, the clocks go forward and Easter approaches, I wonder what it must have been like for the first wave of European immigrants to New Zealand, adjusting to an autumn Easter, a summer Christmas, a gardening/farming/holidaying year turned upside down. Easter in autumn makes no sense either in the Christian or Pagan tradition. Perhaps this is the reason why we have no Maypoles (that I know of) in New Zealand. The meaning and purpose is lost. At a distance I find I have lost the garden rhythm. Al asks what he should plant in my garden for the winter and I struggle to tell him. I realise that my gardening is dependent on the continuity of being there, of knowing instinctively what to plant when, of what follows what as the seasons change.

I have lost touch with the garden in another respect. Being here in winter I have purchased all my fruit and  vegetables and, for some reason, have felt absolved from my usual commitment to buying only what is in season locally. So I have consumed large quantities of courgettes, capsicums and tomatoes from Spain and Morocco. Were I to continue to do this at home I would miss the seasonal changes in vegetables and while my diet might be more varied year round it would also be blander. I would miss that point where I sigh at the very thought of yet another serving of brocolli and long for the beginning of the first salad greens - which are all the more delicious for the wait.