Rare words and swear words, Good words and bad words. What are words worth? (Tom-Tom Club “Wordy Rappinghood” 1982) Words

“Marchons, marchons! Qu’un sang impur, Abreuve nos sillons!” For some reason, March makes me think of La Marseillaise (the French national anthem). I assume it’s the “Marchons!” bit, which sounds like a decisive way to greet the incoming spring.

Traditionally, this month is about cleansing (after the Latin word februum, which means purification). Having survived the excesses of Christmas and the perennially disappointing bun fight that is New Year, we are girding ourselves for spring.

This is the beginning. We wake up (some of us possibly feeling a little delicate after the excitement of New Year’s Eve) to a new morning and a brand-new year. It sparkles with opportunity and promise: What will we grow?

Did you know that this month is National Pet Month in the United Kingdom? Why only one month, you may ask? It would be foolish to have a National Garden Month as we love our gardens (and our pets) every month of the year.

Felley Priory in Nottinghamshire, an RHS Partner Garden, is full of topiary given extra definition and an ethereal enchantment in the right winter weather

If one was of ungenerous mood, then one might think of November as a bit of a waiting room: sitting in a grey miasma, twixt the last breath of late summer warmth and the onrushing froth of tinsel and cranberries that is Christmas.

Don’t think of autumn as the beginning of the end; take a leaf out of Albert Camus’ book and see it as a fresh start. And there’s no better place to do that than at RHS Wisley

The Pant, Fforest Coal Pit, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire – Hidden in the Welsh valleys is a rare treasure, a garden of myriad sources that leaves others in the shade.

October seems to be a month for far-flung festivals: Oktoberfest in Germany (lots of beer and sausages), the Concurs de Castells in Tarragona, Spain (where people compete to form nine-storey human pyramids), a matchmaking shindig for eager singles in Lisdoonvarna, Ireland, and almost all of India celebrates Diwali (the festival of light).

Everybody loves September, except possibly schoolchildren as this signals the end of a long, lazy summer and they must go (to borrow a bit of Shakespeare), “creeping like a snail unwillingly to school”. But, on the educated assumption that most of the estimable readers of this magazine are above school-leaving age, then I reckon this is one of the best months of the year.

There are seats free on all the trains, the roads are little less busy and shopping seems a tad more relaxed. What is going on? I will tell you: it is August, and many people are enjoying far-off beaches and the myriad pleasures offered by the departures lounge at Luton airport.

Are any of you surfers? I have always been rather captivated by the idea of swooping and turning atop a crashing wave. Duck diving, barrel riding, wipeouts and doggy doors. However, I only ever get as far as standing up for a short, though glorious, moment before coming a cropper.