This article is more than 1 month old Green shoots and spring buds tell us that life goes on, despite the Covid crisis, and that we will know joy again A long-tailed tit perched on a budding hedgerow. Photograph: Rebecca Cole/Alamy A long-tailed tit perched on a budding hedgerow. Photograph: Rebecca Cole/Alamy Tue 2 Mar 2021 04.00 EST Last modified on Tue 2 Mar 2021 15.54 EST Iâve been trying to think of songs about spring, but the ones that have come to mind â Ninaâs Simoneâs I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes), Billie Holidayâs Some Other Spring â are mournful. Perhaps itâs a reflection of my state of mind. January and February were abject, with upwards of 1,000 deaths a day and people hibernating with their sorrow. This absence of a collective grieving process has felt especially British: emotionally stifled, and cut off from one another, weâve all been like icebergs, stranded at sea.