Change, the mood-shifting power of smell and a Love List

Annoyingly cheerful musings about shaking up life, a new appreciation of nature, plus a clutch of gold star choices… Look away now if that all sounds too much. (There's some serious stuff too.)

Not that my default setting is Misery Guts, but there’s something about making big life changes, being new to living in the countryside (seasoned rural dwellers feel free to roll eyes), emerging from what felt like an interminable winter and developing a more acute appreciation for nature and the springing of SPRING. My goodness it was beautiful when the sun started shining and the crab apple tree burst into bloom. It started faintly pink and I thought that was it, then…

∆ THIS ∆ is how the tree looked two weeks ago when I started writing (NB now re-writing as some blip on Substack lost me this post almost in its entirety just I was ready to publish; am now decidedly less full of the joys of spring).

I wish there were a scratch-and-sniff function on Substack. The smell of the blossom was giddy-making. Unlike the smell (aka stench) of the rowan tree. What’s that all about, Mother Nature? Horrible. Like something is rotting in the garden, just as everything else is sweetly, greenly beau…