Y OU HAVE to admit it has been a long, cold, hard winter this year. Like me I suspect you are looking forward to a bit of warmth on your back and the smell of spring blossom in the air.

Having said that, I feel it would be remiss of me if I failed to mention LLW's camellia, which has been flowering since before Christmas and sees no sign just yet of giving up the ghost. It really is a lovely sight as you look out on the garden through frost-shrouded, gale-blown windows.

So cold has it been, in fact, I have recently had recourse to leaving candles in little glass bowls at the bottom of the garden to keep the Faeries warm, I care you see. Almost as much as the camellia, it is a delight to see these ethereal creatures sitting around warming themselves in the dark reaches of the night and toasting marshmallows.

Where they get them from I haven't a notion but knowing Faeries I suspect they are in touch with tescohomeshopping.co.uk and are having them delivered. Never let it be said that these insubstantial beings are not capable of moving with the times.

Still, winter cannot possibly last forever and soon we will genuinely feel some serious heat from that sun of ours, the centre of our solar system. Azaleas will bloom, bluebells will cover the floors of our woods and primroses will festoon our hedgerows. Spring will be sprung and we will start to think how lucky we are to live in Ilfracombe and not in a city where the only difference between summer and winter is how much grit there is on the pavements and roads.

And we are lucky you know. Despite seeming to be cut off from the rest of civilisation by twenty miles of bad road, it is this very isolation that makes the town so special. Of course we are always in touch with the world through all sorts of manner and means, much like Faeries, but still, we somehow manage to imprint our own personal stamp on everything we do.

We have yachtsmen standing in cold showers tearing up £10 notes whilst paying for the privilege, or so sailing has been described to me. And gig racers whizzing around in the flimsiest of craft just for the fun of it. We have fishermen braving the unremitting peril of the sea but coming home with the bacon — well, fish actually, but you know what I mean. We have marching bands, clog dancers and Morris Men.

We have all manner of festivals and events to enhance our experiences, with the chance to meet each other and swap tales about our daily lives. In fact, if you have lived in Ilfracombe for any number of years, the chances are the people you meet will know more about you than you do yourself. This is called living in a community.

Aren't we lucky though, to live in a community? I know it is an unpleasant subject but how many times have you heard of cases in big cities where people have been found dead after three or four weeks, left lying because nobody cared. Now, I'm not about to say it has never happened in our fair town, I haven't got the relevant data to hand but if it has happened at all I suggest it is as extremely rare as finding droppings on the carpet from a child's rocking horse.

Community is as community does. Whilst we, as just about everywhere else in the world, have a small minority section of our society that appears not to care or have any interest in the slightest, the vast majority of us do care and care a lot.

We have volunteers who care, cleaning up the graffiti and unspeakable mess the non-carers leave behind them as a signal of their uneducated passing. We have young children who care, planting bushes and trees at every opportunity, and on every site available, to make our town look more attractive.

We have fundraisers who care, exhorting themselves to daring deeds in an attempt to collect money for all sorts of charities, some of which are local and some of which encompass the whole world.

Crikey, we even have some rather attractive ladies from the Golf Club who care enough they are willing to put their personal essentials on moderate display for the sake of a good cause and that must be a first for any golf club, IN THE WORLD!

Goodness knows what the gentlemen golfers thought of it. I bet they huffed and puffed a lot about bringing the club into disrepute; golfers are very hot on that sort of thing you know. I also bet there is not one of them that hasn't got their own personal video of the photo shoot.

I do believe we also have a local council that cares, a forum not prepared to put up with second best or to be sold short on any issue. And this is important; no matter how much we care, it is the decision makers in the seats of regional government who have the final say in any future we hope for ourselves.

Now I don't want to make a big deal out of it but dare I say that even North Devon Council seems to be adopting a caring attitude towards one of the southwest's unique holiday resorts. Hello! Don't look so blank, it's Ilfracombe I'm talking about.

Yes, even NDC has finally realised it has the only resort town between Minehead and Bude sitting right on it's doorstep and is prepared to push a considerable financial boat out for us. Now that's caring.