I saw a photograph of a new batch of frog spawn today on Lakeland Cam and was of a sudden filled with joy and hope for the coming spring and summer. If frogs can show such faith then surely I must find a way to do the same.
I used to so love frog spawn when I was a kid, furnishing a jam jar with a string handle and going out to find a small glob of the stuff to take home where I’d watch the little black eggs grow, form tails and become tadpoles. Day by day I’d sketch the shape of the tiny things and, when they’d outgrown the jam jar I’d transfer them to a small aquarium to become tiny froglets, at which stage I’d transport them carefully back to the tiddler stream and return them to the wild.
Wish I had those nature notebooks now. There are many references on the Internet, illustrated and not, to the development of frog spawn into froglets. Mine would be rather special to me, though, bringing back memories of damp shoes and round-the-ankles crumpled socks.
For all that, and for all the residual coughing and spluttering, I can smell Spring now for certain sure. Buds on the bushes, flowers on the trees, real blue in the sky when cloud cover permits. I’m having to be awfully careful to stay indoors in the warm but seeing the signs from my window and on my computer screen is a fair substitute. “Be thankful for small mercies,” my mother would say.
