Well, spring is springing. It’s the Equinox today, which means something very special that an Equinox Specialist will be happy to tell you about. Chez Bah!, there’s another sort of special: it means that it’s the perfect day to show you the bulbs I planted on New Year’s Eve.

As the last afternoon of 2011 gloamed into evening, I took five minutes to plant crocii, tulips, daffodils, and something beginning with ‘a’ (I am not one of life’s natural gardeners) in a small moment of hope, faith, and the knowledge that it’s worth waiting for good things to happen.

This is what I’ve got.

(There are more, but  you get the gist.)

And these small, hopeful spikes and ellipses couldn’t be more welcome. I’m not good at waiting, but at the moment I’m having to do a lot of it. I’m waiting for mammogram results, and for my appointment with the oncologist on Thursday (routine, but still pulsing through my diary). I’m waiting for book news, and I’m waiting for the next books to cook themselves into a state where I can start to coax them into words. I’m waiting for more sun, more light, more feeling of day. I’m waiting for nights when I sleep well to return.

Everything that I’m waiting for is either in someone else’s hands, or something I have learned I must wait for. So I’m waiting. I’m not doing it very well, but every time I walk through the garden to the studio, to spend some more time knitting and thinking and plotting and hoping, these tiny things I planted almost three months ago say: all in good time, Stephanie. All in good time.