When Spring Sprang

Written by: Bob

The air was still; the only noise, the soft drip, plink, splash, splish, as the world began to thaw punctuated by the occasional window rattling thud, as layers of snow, built up over the last 4 months of heavy winter, transformed themselves from pretty frosting in to mountainous piles determined to block all sunlight from the inside of the school. The tops of the bushes started to appear from their white winter jumpers and the fir trees, as the snow on them thawed and dripped to the floor, sprang back to their upright positions sending mini snow storms flying in to the air.

Standing there in the silence watching the world re-emerge, it felt as if the whole town was holding it’s breath in anticipation, watching as the sun finally won its battle with the clouds and the first tentative fingers of sunlight crept across the frozen playground.

As those first rays of glorious bright light hit us in the face, closing our eyes, we lifted our heads up to meet the warmth and found ourselves taking an involuntary deep slow breath in and out, almost in unison. The warmth of the sunshine seemed to spread down through our bodies and we noticed that suddenly we seemed to be standing a little taller, that our backs were a little straighter, our necks longer and faces more relaxed; the frowns disappeared. We turned to each other and grinned; damn it felt good to be alive that morning, and then, as if someone shouted ‘go’, we all set off at once, hurtling into the yard in our brightly coloured bobble hats and duffle coats, squealing and whooping with delight at being freed from our winter prison and finally being able to play out.

It wasn’t long before the dulcet tones of the headmaster stopped our childish antics in their tracks and we all jumped up and stood bowed headed before the sour faced head.

"What the hell do you think you are doing? You are the teachers not the children, you are supposed to be setting a good example!” he hissed, “Now get to your classrooms” he spluttered, this time raising his voice and thrusting out one finger in the direction of the front door, “Now!”

Back towards the school we walked, the sensible walk of teachers being watched by hundreds of little impressionable eyes. However, this time, our footsteps had a discernible bounce to them, and as we got to the door we all stopped for a moment to brush the snow of each others backs and shared one last grin before turning and hurrying off to our waiting classes.