In Korea, I struggled, even more than the unfamiliar food and chilly (read: bloody freezing) weather, with the long, long winter. I have grown up with northern stories – fairytales from Germany, school stories set in Austria, UK children’s books – so I was aware of winters more extreme than my own. I never realised how long, cold and miserable they could be. I now understand the age-old fear that the sun might never return. There were moments where I found myself wondering if I would ever be warm again. One of the moments that sticks in my mind is the first time I felt sun on my skin in six months. It was Saturday afternoon in late April and I was at Duryu Park. After walking for a while I started to feel warm (it had warmed up to 12C), so I took off my jacket and finally felt in the sunshine on my arms. It sounds such a small thing but just thinking about it, I am filled again with that rush of relief and joy.

South Africa is different. When I arrived home, winter had just begun. Apart from a few miserable days and the occasional snow on high mountains, the cold has been limited to a chilly wind and some frosty nights. It’s as if winter here is weaker, less able to taunt and terrify, less powerful than the snowy, icy grip in the north. Seasons turn dramatically in Korea, when they finally arrive, and summer is sharp but short. Here winter is small and gently smiling spring has begun her slow comeback long before the last memory of summer’s sunburn fades.

The weather is changing. A new wind blows, sweeping away winter cobwebs. Some days are cold again, as winter tries to keep hold a little longer. Others are warm and sunny. In the Eastern Cape, the grass is still winter-bleached and the ground dry and sandy, but already new leaves are unfurling and blossoms shyly emerge. Spring jasmine scents warm afternoons and turns slanting sunlight to magic.

My second spring of the year will be less dramatic; with no cherry-blossom festivals and no prospect of everything flowering in one go. It will be longer and gentler and, at least to me, more beautiful. There will be time to enjoy each moment, to notice each flower, quietly to come to terms with the change and the return. This spring will not crown the year. She is the forerunner, the anticipation of the scorching African summer to come – the summer of warmth and home, air that holds and envelopes, taste metallic, like thunderstorms and blood, and the heady scent of dust as ancient as the world