The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Monday, April 17

Happy Monday, Hoddlers! Fitzie is still out of town this week, so I’m stepping in.

The magnolia tree by my house was in full bloom this weekend. It’s a little early this year — we’ve had a couple of unusually warm weeks where I live and it’s kick-started a bunch of spring growth. The daffodils always come this early, but there’s a green haze on the trees now, and the flowering trees — including the magnolias — are blooming. I suspect we’ll have redbuds opening here before too long, though I don’t usually expect this to happen for another couple of weeks.

Indiana isn’t known for its magnolias, but they’ve always been meaningful to me. In the house I grew up in, we had a HUGE magnolia tree, I’d say 15-20’ tall, that grew in our front yard, right in front of our porch. When it bloomed every May, it was glorious. My brother and my bedroom (we shared) looked out over the roof of the porch which gave us an incredible view, and the porch roof was flat and we could clamber out of our windows to sit on the roof.

I don’t remember exactly when this started, but sometime when I was a kid my mother had the brilliant idea to have a picnic out on the porch roof when the magnolia was in full glory. She called it our “Magnificent Magnolia Meal,” because there’s nothing mothers of young children like than some good alliteration.

That meal was always a highlight of spring when I was a kid, and I have very fond memories of that house, and that tree. We moved away to a neighboring town when I was 15, and what I’ve always found interesting is that the year after we left, that glorious, huge, flowering magnolia tree... died. I think it knew.

Spring comes at different times of the year depending on where you live, but wherever you are I hope you can find some spring in your step and in your heart in the coming days.

Song of the Day: “Meáchan Rudaí (The Weight of Things)”, The Gloaming. Lyrics and about the song.