Spring is in the air

What a lovely morning it was today! I woke up to a welcome draft of cool soft breeze bringing with it the mixed aroma of spring flowers. The Sun was already shining bright on the spring bloom. Rather queer and quaint was a cluster of dark clouds in the periphery producing a mix of shade and sunshineI could not resist outdoors to enjoy the heavenly spring, ephemeral, as shortly the scorching summer will parch my plants.Bruno too was enjoying himself taking an invigorating stroll in the lawn, constantly alert to any piece of ‘non-vegetarian’, dropped accidentally by a surveying eagle in my vegetable garden’, as he is denied that luxury in his usual meals. There in my kitchen garden I found that the rhizomes of colocasia I had sown around two months back had given out their first set of leaves. Colocasia or ‘Aravi,’ as it is known in local dialect, is valued for its tasty rhizomes. These are first boiled or fried to remove the slightly acrid taste. At some places the leaves too are fried with gram flour and eaten for their tingling after taste. All the plants seemed to be enjoying the sun and the spring but these fluorescent blue cineraria appealed to me the most. Their brilliant blue somehow enables me to rid myself of those ‘Morning Blues’ which strike me from time to time. A perfect contrast to the blue was being provided by the beautiful bottle brushes, swaying gently with the breeze. Finally with the morning survey complete I strutted to the house with a twinkle in my eyes and spring in my steps.