Already?

It should happen later in the year. It would certainly have more meaning if it were a little later in the year. But this year, springtime has come especially early. Like, by mid-February, it was all well underway.

Maybe because the rains forgot to keep coming? Or because, with the time change so early, the calendar had to get bumped up as well?

The daffodils are always early, but usually the hyacinths wait a little longer than this. Around the corner from our house it is even more obvious: there is a protea bush which has reveled in the mild weather.

Proteas look ancient and slightly primitive, and they are. Their ancestors go back 300 million years (prime dinosaur time) to the continent of Gondwana, which included the present day Antarctica, South America, Africa, New Zealand, India and Australia.

Even though their origins are in the southern hemisphere, they have adjusted to a northern springtime. And bloom like nothing else - start as a tight, little, green pine(ish) cone and blow yourself apart. The show lasts for weeks and weeks. It is impossible to walk past and not stop and stare.