Jessie: In New Hampshire, beginning to tire of winter…
Every year about this time I am ready for spring. I have a great deal of patience with the weather as a rule and adore making my home in an area of the planet with four distinct seasons. That being said, March is tough. There are a few days that make one hope for fine spring days to come and then those hopes are dashed by a cold snap, cloud cover or a snowstorm that dumps severeal inches on my village.
It is in March that I find I turn to indulgences. I must admit to be a bit inclined to allow myself to partake in treats of all sorts throughout the year, but in March the desire to do so is particularly acute. I have noticed that I give such leeway to my characters as well. Edwina loves to sit in her favorite chair to work on a knitting project whilst listening to a favorite program on the wireless. On a chilly, bleak weekend day I love nothing more than casting a new project on the needles as I binge-watch a mystery series like Shetland or Wild Bill.
Like Beryl, I love a dry martini. She partakes in them far more often than do I but, I find myself more easily convinced to mix one up in the last days of this month when something spirited seems in order. I love to have a good gorge on the plant catalogues that both Edwina and Simpkins would peruse and allow myself to imagine that I will be better at weeding than is truly likely.
I also find myself whipping up meals that Simpkins would not be ashamed to have concocted; things with lots of sauce and meats left to simmer for hours on the stove or in the slow cooker. He and I completely agree that the depths of March is no time for salad or any cold veg, come to think of it.
As far as I am concerned, the last days of discouraging weather are often the best for staying inside to work on a new novel. Edwina is of a similar turn of mind and spends the time she would devote to her garden in the growing season to pounding out another page of her story set in the wild west , creating greater and greater difficulties for her cowboy hero, Bart Dalton. Invariably, in March I indulge in long working sessions on the next Beryl and Edwina mystery. After all, the warm weather will be here, even in New Hampshire, before long. When it comes I will want to indulge in that too and and my next deadline will be looming! So, in the end, I suppose, March is really a sort of indulgence in and of itself!
Readers, do you find yourself indulging at various times of the year? Is March still winter where you are or has spring arrived?