After that rather grim outpouring, I thought I should write something a little lighter on the head and heart!

The cherry trees now have this bleached look and have decided to finally grow some leaves! It's amazing!

It's almost as if after the unending months of bleak and gray winter, the trees lose their minds when they see the warm glow of the sun. And in the sheer euphoria that follows (which, incidentally, causes the human female here to shed clothes at an alarming rate!) the trees burst forth in bloom - myriad shades of white and pink - in celebration. Then after having stood there all dressed up in their blossoms for a couple of weeks, they begin to feel a little silly when they realise that they don't have any leaves! So, rather reluctantly, they finally give in and the little green sprigs begin to show.

And then it's green all the way.

But what a truly captivating phenomenon! As Amitav Ghosh puts it, if you missed that one week when the tree was in full bloom, you have not know the tree at all!

Cheers to cherry blossoms!