Spring finally seems to have arrived in earnest in western Tokyo after what has been a funny kind of first few months of 2024, and I know this because of the Fountain of Strewth.
Our fountain is finally sprouting proudly in the morning sunshine where just a few weeks ago I had been lamenting that it was no longer working.
It was operating perfectly, as it turned out, but the problem was that the solar-powered fountain wasn’t pumping water into the skies.
It took hearing that veggie prices were skyrocketing for the pump’s poor performance to finally sink in: it has been a dark year.
For me, the cold months in Tokyo are symbolized by bright sunshine, icy cold air that is crisp and clean and then as spring moves forward, powerful winds.
We sure got the winds this year, and the icy cold air, but the sunshine wasn’t quite how I’d come to expect it to be.
And the onset of spring was proof of that, with flower growth stunted or non-existent, and the poor Fountain of Strewth serving only as a bath or drinking source for the local birdlife.
But the fountain has finally found form and the sun has started showing up more regularly. Hopefully, we’ll see some rapid plant growth now. But, strewth, it’s taken a long time.
