It's back. Three months of lovin'.

Spring officially started a couple days ago. I don't really like spring. (Except for my birthday.) The weather is never right; it's always too cold to dress warmly but too warm to dress summery. And it's always raining, which I've realised this weekend.

Anyhow, I don't really like to work with official dates. (Unless it's my birthday.) I prefer it when I can just feel that it's spring rather than have to look in my diary to know that a new season has started. The last few weeks have prepared me for the start of spring.

First off, we also had a couple days of sun in February which was a sign. I know I said days, but really I meant hours. I mean, pfffft... fat chance we'll ever get a whole day of sun. The two hours of sun we had two weeks ago were pretty exceptional for Dutch standards.

Another way of telling spring was coming up was the stress among teachers in school. Spring = exam week = death. Add to that, bad grades + lazy students = half of the school failing the year. Which all adds up to major stress. That, in turn, turns into illnesses which results in - yay! - lots of teachers not turning up. Free periods!

Lastly, there were online hints. By logging in to MSN I was able to calculate when spring would start. The number of hearts and roses in people's names revealed how close to spring we were. Around Valentine's there was a short hiccup in the rising number of hearts but overall it's been a steady grow over the weeks since New Year's. It reached it's highest point to date two days ago, so that's a solid sign that spring is here.

PEOPLE, YOU BETTER GET YOUR HEARTS BEATING AND THE REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS MOVING. I want this number to grow.

Because more hearts = more love = the weather must be getting better.