8 a.m.
Perhaps it was partly the pleasant spring weather that had such a beneficial effect on Gwen 's temper . She loved the early growing season of the year , when every day was a little longer and lighter than the last , and the bulbs were pushing up in the garden , and the hazel catkins showering clouds of pollen in the lane , and the rooks cawing and building in the clump of elms near the mill , and great flights of screaming white sea-gulls , noisy , chattering jackdaws , and cheery , whistling starlings flew all together in mixed flocks to feed on the wolds . The morning walk to North Ditton across the heath , so bleak and wretched in December , was a daily delight now the sun was glinting over the sea and the gorse was in bud , and the stonechats , which had vanished during the cold weather , were back among the boulders , darting from stone to stone in short , jerky flight , with that sharp , jarring cry which is the prelude to their sweeter spring note . The moorland air at 8 a.m. was so fresh and pure and exhilarating that it seemed to blow away all the cobwebs , and Gwen often felt inclined to dance along the path for sheer joy of the sun and the wind , and the birds and the countless green things that were rapidly showing their heads through the brown skeletons of last autumn 's heather and bilberry . The thrill of springtime is a totally different sensation from what we experience on even the most gorgeous day in October ; there is a message of hope in the air , a foretaste of the coming summer , a glow of reawakened vitality , an exaltation half physical and half spiritual , as every year nature tells us afresh in her own fashion the miracle of the Resurrection . Life was a busy round at the Parsonage . Winnie devoted each moment she could spare to the garden and the hen-yard , and Gwen , who at present had a craving for out-of-doors , lent a hand as often as she could .