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Trees are blooming, tulips Are budding and baseball is underway. It is spring again.

I have had a life-long bias against cold weather and I might as well admit it up-front. I suspect that a lot of people living in colder climates feel the same way. The trouble is that most of them won't say so in mixed company.

But they do whisper it to their travel agent.

Every morning, all winter long, there is a line-up of airport limousines parked in front of homes and condos in northern cities, waiting for snow birds to haul their luggage to the curb before dawn. Every night, the same cars return to disgorge well-tanned residents. Starting with the Christmas holiday, and continuing almost without interruption until schools reopen after spring break, so many people flee to a condo in Florida or Arizona, or a sunny resort on a hot island, that airports resemble those in some war-torn country where everyone is scrambling desperately for the last flight out before the invading hoards arrive to loot, pillage and burn the city. From late November until late March, the departure lounges teem with crowds of people wearing the same hollow look on their face that you see in newspaper photos of newly-released hostages.

Those who do not flee south disappear indoors the first time a cold front slides down from the Arctic. Even where I live, in a neighbourhood that is the dictionary definition of the word, as soon as winter strikes, residents retreat into their snug homes, fireplaces roaring and a bottle of whiskey nearby. When the community reappears with the crocuses and tulips, we have pasty complexions and sour looks on our faces. Those who have been locked inside with companions, whether a spouse, a live-in, an ageing parent or small children, often have a very churlish attitude, as well. It is almost as if they were on the verge of sticking a kitchen knife in the neck of someone if winter lasted another 24 hours.

But when spring arrives, people re-take the streets.

Even though the calendar barely flipped to spring, as soon as the air is warm enough, people try getting away wearing just a sweater and light jacket. Lawns facing south are green for the first time since October, and here and there a handful of tulip springs pop up a bit in protected spots around houses. Yes, tomorrow could feel like February again with a sharp, north wind whistling down the street and afternoon temperatures refusing to struggle above freezing. Flurries might whipsaw through the air. But today

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