This being the torture season, or the season where we look for signs that winter is in fact over, where we look for green things poking up out of the ground with buds on them or with – better still – FLOWERS on them, green things are at a premium.

Was that sentence long enough, you ask? Has this period of purgatory between winter and spring been long enough this year??? Yes, I say YES. Please let me out of the iron maiden which is spring 2007.

The torture has gone on long enough. I will TALK, dammit! Just please, please can we have a few days of double digits and sunshine? In a row? Would it be okay if I took off my 15″ layer of dead leaves off my completely bare, still somewhat frigid soil?

Who am I speaking to anyway? The Gods of Spring that’s who! What, did you fall asleep and forget to switch the dial over to “Crocuses coming up”? I can’t TAKE it any longer, I’ll tell you anything you want to know!!!!!

In the meantime, I have been consumed with envy every time I look at the one thing that suggests spring may happen in the next few months: my sister’s snowdrops.

Now it’s true there are no actual patches of snow anywhere near these snowdrops, just lots of bare earth and leaves, and technically winter is LONG GONE, at least by the calendar, so these little beauties aren’t exactly doing their dropping in a snowy environment.

But they are blooming, and they are the only dammed thing that is blooming right now. And the source of my envy is that they are in a nice big magnificent clump, all bunched together like penguins in that movie, but without the eggs.

I have exactly 8 snowdrops, all scattered about the garden like…well, penguins that got lost.

My sister keeps telling me, well you should plant them in bunches, and I keep saying back to her, “I did! I did plant them in a bunch!!!” But all I have are these sad, solitary snowdrops.

I shouldn’t be complaining, I’m not really, Gods of Spring, please do not smite me! I love my snowdrops! I love the fact that on April 14th of 2007 I have actually 8 living plants with flowers on them dotted randomly about my garden. Thank you Gods of Spring, I bow before you with earnest gratitude.

It’s just that I look over at my sister’s garden next door and I see…clumps. And I covet the clumps. Especially this excruciating year of: “Is it spring yet? Let me check the calendar, yes, it seems to be spring. Oh, good. Let’s pop outside shall we? Um, No, dammit. It’s not spring yet.”

Easter has come and gone. If spring purgatory continues in this way sometime in Late May or early June I may actually see my Pasque flower in bloom. Something to look forward to.

In the meantime, off I go to covet.