For centuries now, this time of year has filled us with hope. The Roman poet Ovid lamented that New Year comes in the cold of winter when it would much better begin in spring. In 1829 the poet I can only identify as JB wrote about the flowers ‘when returning spring renews their blossoms with her genial breath’ and now this year Poet Laureate Simon Armitage has epitomised spring when ‘a butterfly yawns and hoists its new bn corn wings to the full blown dawn’.

In early April a cold East wind scars the churchyard. Most wildlife is sensibly still hunkered down. A Bumblebee quarters the ground looking for a hole in which to make its nest. Some Dandelions and Red Dead Nettle are in bloom. It is difficult to imagine how different the picture will be by the time this reaches you in May. The painter David Hockney describes the time when hawthorn blossom is throwing creamy sprays across country lanes as his ‘action week’: he has to rise at dawn every day to catch it all on canvas. But so much is now changing so quickly at this time of year that perhaps every week should be our ‘action week’.

We take for granted that Spring will arrive, that the universe will continue its natural cycle of vitality and decline - youthfulness, exuberance, maturity and senescence - that apply to all living things.

Should we? As early as 1898, Dr Astrov in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya was preoccupied with the destruction of forests in one of the first. mentions of ecological problems in world literature. Only now, over a hundred years later, do we fully appreciate what destruction we are bringing on our natural world and the urgency of taking action to reverse this.

Suddenly, the room-cooing of the pigeons and the trilling of a wren are interrupted by a loud burst of clapping from the schoolyard. The children are holding an Easter bonnet parade and applauding each other’s efforts. Oh Happy Fletching! How lucky our children are to be brought up in such a beautiful place. How much we must value it and hold it in trust for their children and their children’s children too.