There is often a discussion in our house about our favourite month of the year.

We are all clear on the worst month, January, despite two birthdays, closely followed by February. But thereafter we often disagree.

I am not a winter person..at all. I can hold on in a vaguely jolly way until Christmas, bouyed along by the twinkly lights, anticipation and sense of purpose. Even with the offspring growing into adulthood, we are still all together, and enjoy the rituals in the build up and on the day itself.

We have taken to going away to Cornwall straight after to avoid the depression of that dead period between Christmas and New Year. We enjoy a new year’s body board and eat too much left over food and chocolate and play daft games.

But then I have to come home and face the reality of January. For those readers not living in the UK it’s safe to say that the dark, murky days of January; dawn at 9am, dusk by 4pm are difficult. Some people like it. Not many though. In recent years we have had no snow to bring any excitement and it’s often wet and cold and dark..the least appealing combination of British weather.

In late March things pick up a little. There are some early flowers, the clocks change and it stays light for longer. It’s a hopeful month. Early spring can be lovely; crispy and fresh, with little jewels of colour from early bulbs.

But to my mind nothing beats England in May.

There is a burgeoning. Plants seem to grow in front of your eyes. The greens of the new growth are fresh and multi hued. Cow parsley dances in the wind like choruses of tethered ballerinas. Birds sing and sing and sing.

The best May I can remember was in lockdown 2020. I am not sure we have had a May like it before or since. The sun shone nearly every day. Confined to our houses and immediate localities everything I love about May came into sharp relief.

We all had to slow down. Every day on my permitted walk the crops in the fields had grown another inch or two, hawthorn blossomed and turned the air heavy with its rich, musky scent. Bees buzzed madly over my garden of alliums and geraniums and salvia. It felt like nature got a foothold back.

But even in damper versions of May there is a beauty. Rain drops caught on new leaves. The water releasing the smell of warming earth. Snails walking down the pavements.

The light is incredible as we build to the longest day. Nature wears its new clothes with pride and abandon. There is no point trying to tame it, the weed battle is already lost.

Others love high summer, July and August, our traditional holiday months but to me the world is already tiring and dimming.

Autumn has its fans with its colours and mists and bounty.

But for me May has it all. And every year I greet it with the same sense of excitement. And mourn it’s passing.