The warm rays of the sun cover my face and the roses in the garden are blooming. My neighbours call it spring. I call it summer.

Last month I enjoyed the mesmerising beauty of the cherry blossom and magnolias. On the 21st of April 1960, Sylvia Plath wrote in a letter to her mother; ‘They are mowing the lawns everywhere, and the smell of cut grass, plants, and warm earth is delicious. Nothing is so beautiful as England in April’ (Letters Home. Faber, 1990. p.377) I couldn’t agree more.

Photo: Hörður Jónasson

It was still snowing in Reykjavik earlier this month and up north the snowfall hasn’t quite stopped. The wait for spring in Iceland can be long but when it finally arrives and nature awakens, nothing is more welcome nor celebrated.