Tabs
20 April 1945
The ice is all gone now from the lake, the birds are singing, the wild white anemone is starry in the ditches -- and I've just picked the very first bunch of them for my writing table. I opened up my bedroom a few weeks ago -- and it's a treat to wake up there of a morning instead of in the tiny kitchen. Today I took a can of boiling water down to the edge of the lake and had a glorious scrub and then plopped into the ice-cold lake -- the first time since November. But nobody who hasn't lived through the long dark winter can imagine the intoxication of the early spring here -- so bare compared to all the lilac and daffs and other joys of English spring. The ice is gone a month earlier than usual, too. But the green shoots of daffs are no more than an inch above the earth -- yet. Nearly every time I get a letter from Finland they say, "We heard B.R. on the radio last night." I, of course, haven't one; nor telephone either.