Dialogue: Who cares about calendars when the daffodils are out?

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Clouds of golden pollen are bursting out all over the countryside. Paddocks, not so long ago barren and gluggy, have come alive with daffodils.

And a pale light sneaks through the curtains at 6.30 am, when last week it was still dark and gloomy.

The colour yellow is working its way back into view - so it must be spring. Well, almost.

Traditionalists will have it that the change of season is still a fortnight away. Climatologists maintain winter will dig its icy claws into the landscape for another month yet.

But it is time for winter - albeit as mild as it has been - to move on. Even if, the experts say, this spring will bring with it a frosty reception.

One of the first signs of spring is all over your car windscreen, in a dusting of coarse yellow powder. On dry, sunny days in the Dome Valley, north of Auckland, you can watch the pollen explode above the forest of pinus radiata like a daytime fireworks extravaganza.

The pollen dumpings herald the start of the sneezy-wheezy season. Pine pollen is the bane of hay fever sufferers the world over - and a boom time for chemists.

Asthma New Zealand president Allan Liang has his own way of measuring the arrival of spring.

"You don't need any scientific studies. You can detect the start of spring by the daily sales of antihistamines at pharmacies," Dr Liang said. "And it's already started."

Asthmatics are not as badly affected by the stuff because the particles of pollen are too big to work their way into your lungs. But they get right up your nose, niggling the sinuses.

Not all blooms are bothersome at this time of year - others are heightening the senses. The first bulbs of the growing season have burst from the ground, splaying gardens with their colourful petals.

Daffodils poked their trumpeting heads out of our garden weeks ago. They are so plentiful now, young entrepreneurs down our street are selling bunches for $2 out of buckets by the roadside.

Those with serious green fingers at the Auckland Regional Botanical Gardens in Manurewa are treasuring their bumper crop of spring flowers after an unconventional winter. Jonquils and erlicheer battle for attention with freesias, magnolias and camellias; the cherry and plum trees are already bursting with blossom.

Down in Carterton - New Zealand's daffodil capital - they're getting ready for the start of their spring on September 9. That's the day of the annual daffodil carnival, when the flowers are ritually plucked from the fields of Middlerun.

Of course if you want serious signs of winter's end, look to the heavens. They're getting brighter and the days longer. This morning, the sun rose above the easterly horizon a couple of strokes before 7 am (I'll take the word of the weather office on this), and it should stay in the sky until 6 o'clock tonight.

Although September 1 is seen as spring's official birthday, meteorologists will wait another three weeks to celebrate. Bob McDavitt, the Met Service's weather ambassador, recognises the equinox as the changeover date.

"On September 21, day will equal night. The position of the sun in the sky is a better way to measure spring," he says.

But don't expect it to be all sunshine from there on in. With the equinox come bitterly cold winds, and Mr McDavitt is predicting frosts. The equinoctial gales are southwesterlies, which blow straight from the Antarctic, as the sun hits the snow for the first time in six dark months.

It's been a strange winter - punctuated with long spells of cool, dry days and clear nights, brought on by an extraordinary string of anticyclones. But long, clear nights in springtime equate to frosts by morning - the arch-enemy of orchardists and veggie growers.

Sure, it was a winter of minor discomfort. But now that we have to avoid the temptation of turning on the electric blanket or soaking in a bath, bring on daylight saving early, so we can at least imagine it's spring.