Spring at last?

I'm still not 100% convinced.

Yes, the daytime weather started perking up at the weekend, and has been decidedly warm for the past couple of days, but..... still the breeze is quite brisk, and there's a lingering nip in the air that we don't usually feel in April. Things are cooling off pretty quickly after dark, and even I am not hardy enough to venture out at night in shirtsleeves alone.

Usually when Spring arrives here, it arrives so emphatically that you know, you just know that there aren't now going to be any more of those shitty cold spells. And the trees and bushes know it too, because they put forth their blossoms abundantly, unanimously, simultaneously.

This year, there still seems to be something a bit tentative about the blossom response. Some trees began coming into bloom on Sunday and are already now starting to look a bit threadbare, after taking quite a buffeting from the wind. A few others still seem to be holding back. And some appear to have started to blossom, and then retracted again, as if suspicious that Winter maybe still has one more dirty trick up its sleeve this year.

Spring only lasts 8 or 10 days in Beijing, and I had been starting to fret that I might miss most of it if I didn't have any time to get out and about before the weekend. But I think (I hope) the still slightly equivocal warm weather may stagger the Spring a little more than usual this year, may prolong our cherry-blossom season into next week.

If it does, I may even take a few pictures for you.