As March gives way to April, I feel a sadness. This is when the snowdrops – so eagerly awaited, so welcomed – shrink, fade and disappear. The flowers, I mean. But the plants remain, growing and nurturing. White dresses are for early days – the young and aspiring call for petals, petticoats, honeyed scents and pretty attractions. Soon enough and unseen, the task is accomplished. Enticements abandoned, let business begin. Now is the time for real growth to develop what was not noticed – a green globe swelling increasingly gravid – the discarded’s forgotten. Old flowers turn yellow twist, dry into straw and withering, vanish. Meanwhile a heavy pod grows like a bomb ready to drop new snowdrops. Perhaps it’s because they’re the first flowers to appear, and those little green spears which thrust through everything nature throws at them – leaf litter, mud, snow, even an unwitting boote