Summertime?

Here in Denmark we don't have Daylight Savings, as such.  Instead we change the clocks twice a year, in late October and late March.  From October to March we have Vintertid, winter-time.  And from March to October, it's Sommertid, summer-time. 

In a way, this is hopelessly optimistic, since March in Denmark is not especially balmy or sunny.  And yet, there's something true about it.  Of course we get the extra hour of light in the evenings, and it comes right when the days have actually started getting longer-- just over 13 hours long this week.  And if you've ever been to Denmark in the summer, then you know the evening light is special in a heart-breakingly nostalgic, Nordic sort of way.  And when Sommertid starts, that kind of light starts up too.

Despite the special summer light, it is actually just becoming spring.  The first sign of spring here is when the crocuses start popping up.  Some years they have to fight their way up through the snow, but when you see them carpeting Rådhusparken and the grounds of Vor Frue Kirke, then it's springtime in Aarhus.

  

It's getting warm enough now that C and I have been finding lots of ladybugs--more and more each day.  Today we found nearly 100 mariehøns!  Luckily we know the Danish rhyme to say when we find them:

Marie, Marie, Marolle
Flyv op til Vorherre og bed om godt vejr. 

Marie, Marie, Marolle.

Fly up to Our Lord and pray for good weather.

So far it's working!