SPRING IS BUSTING OUT ALL OVER!

"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough."
Alfred Edward Housman "A Shropshire Lad" 1896

"Spring is busting out all over..."
"Cherry pink and apple blossom white..."
"In the leafy treetops, the birds say good-morning..."
Tra-la-la...

All these songs were going through my head today as I played outside in the daycare yard with the little folk.
"I'm forever blowing bubbles...
Pretty bubbles in the air,
They fly so high, almost reach the sky..." Tra-la-la. I sang this song as the bubble machine spurted a cloud of shimmering rainbow tinted bubbles that floated around the playyard, and the children frolicked trying to catch them in their tiny hands.

It was a good day. Spring is in the air. And in the yard the gardens were abloom with crocus, daffodils and hyacinths. The daycare is located near a public market, and it faces a park-like area with blossoming trees, lawns, a stream with rushes where redwings perch and ducks cruise and once it warms up a bit more, turtles bask on the rocks.

My part-time day job is working as a daycare supervisor (Early Childhood Educator as they are called.) I've been an ECE supervisor for over 30 years and who would have thought ten years ago that I'd still be working! I quit full time work back in '93 when I decided I'd had enough of the politics and nonsense of mean-spirited Boards and got offered a ticket to Greece by the Greek Consulate in order to do more research on my novel. But, alas! because of economics I've never really quit working, except now I have only one Centre I 'sub' at and that's because I've known a couple of staff members for years and feel it is a kind of 'family' to me. It's an under-3's centre and the little ones are adorable. I'm kind of the resident Grandma. And that's okay.

So, today I worked all day with my little friends and enjoyed most of the morning and the afternoon outdoors enjoying the balmy Spring weather.

I love this time of year and have felt my spirits rising in the past week. The last few days there's been a 'spring' in my step and a song in my heart, especially today.

I did intend to do some writing tonight, but once I'd made dinner and watched the news I didn't much feel like doing anything more than vegging out. And that's exactly what I did
except for editing on travel article for someone in my class. I also made a couple of phone calls, one to another woman who wanted travel markets for a story she's written, and another to discuss trip plans with my friend Ingrid. We're getting ourselves organized to go to England and Greece in mid-May and June and both of us are excited about the possibility of adventuring together. She wants me to show her "my" Greece. And she has never visited England before either. We have a mutual friend (Kitty) in London who we want to visit and another one (A-B) from Norway who we hope will meet us in Athens.

It's the weekend and I'll write tomorrow, then go out dancing to the L.Q. with my pal Suzaki.
I hear there's an Irish (St. Pat's) parade downtown on Sunday too. And the weatherman predicts lovely Spring weather!

"The flowers that bloom in the Spring, tra-la
Have nothing to do with the case..." ("The Mikado" 1885)
Sir William S. Gilbert