Two weeks ago we bought two bunches of tight budded daffodils at a reduced price of 49 pence each bunch because they were past their sell by date. Two weeks on they are in full bloom and are gorgeous double headed daffodils. Not past their sell by date at all.
Two months late but thriving. These small narcissi used to be a New Year event. One tiny clump existed immediately behind an old military fence at Devils Point. Last year the area was landscaped and the narcissi became collateral damage as the old fence was ripped up. Huge concrete posts were torn out and there was no sign of the tiny bulbs. Several visits at New Year showed nothing much in the freshly landscaped area, just some straggly leaves that may of may not have been the bulbs. But two months on there are two larger clumps than ever existed previously.
If the bulbs had been deliberately protected the outcome would not have been so great. The one preserved clump would certainly be celebrated but by getting no protection and being woefully mistreated by a big digger with caterpillar tracks, the clump has become clumps and seemingly much healthier. I can’t get a useful shot of them both together as they really are very very small and quite a way apart now. I wonder if they will manage to make up time over the summer and autumn underground and be ready to bloom on New Year’s Day 2024. I hope so, but seeing them so healthy in February feels like a clear sign that Spring is on the way and that, as is often the case, my moments of worry were moments wasted. They were doing just fine on their own
Here we are, past the middle of February by some way and I have not given daffodils the usual blog space that is normal for this time of year. This year I am not driving all over Cornwall arranging arty stuff so I don’t get the thrill of seeing wild and often unusual daffodils growing in the hedgerows where they were discarded during the second World War, when flower fields were changed to food production. Our house has had the easily available £1 daffodil bunches available in most supermarkets. Pretty enough to bring joy to the house but standard looking. Until this week. This week’s bunch took a while to open and were unusual in that they have a different shape, a bit like a cross between a daf and a tulip. Their outside petals form a cup and don’t open.
Extensive googling can’t find the name of these unusual daffodils. I wonder if they were picked in error for the bottom end of the daffodil bunch market. I am very happy to have them. Googling however took me somewhere a little sad. Supermarket Flowers is a song written by Ed Sheeren in 2017.
The actual words were unknown to me but really resonate with the moments when a family gathers to clear up after a mum has died.
I took the supermarket flowers from the windowsill
I threw the day old tea from the cup
Packed up the photo album Matthew had made
Memories of a life that’s been loved
Took the get well soon cards and stuffed animals
Poured the old ginger beer down the sink
Dad always told me, “Don’t you cry when you’re down”
But mum, there’s a tear every time that I blink
Oh I’m in pieces, it’s tearing me up, but I know
A heart that’s broke is a heart that’s been loved
So I’ll sing Hallelujah
You were an angel in the shape of my mum
When I fell down you’d be there holding me up
Spread your wings as you go
And when God takes you back we’ll say Hallelujah
You’re home
Fluffed the pillows, made the beds, stacked the chairs up
Folded your nightgowns neatly in a case
John says he’d drive then put his hand on my cheek
And wiped a tear from the side of my face
I hope that I see the world as you did ’cause I know
A life with love is a life that’s been lived
So I’ll sing Hallelujah
You were an angel in the shape of my mum
When I fell down you’d be there holding me up
Spread your wings as you go
And when God takes you back we’ll say Hallelujah
You’re home
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Johnny Mcdaid / Edward Christopher Sheeran / Benjamin Joseph Levin
If the last Supermarket Flowers I ever received were daffodils, I would be a very happy woman. Even the boring ones bring such happiness.
A late published blog because the early morning ran away with me and then serendipity took me in a different direction. I am 10 days into a virus that is not Covid. Every day the test(s) come back negative. It is however quite the worst cold I have ever had and it has robbed me of energy, lung and brain function and I have absolutely no sense of taste and smell. The picture above exactly conjours up my eating and drinking life currently. It is the inside of a cherry and almond puff. I know that on my tongue there should be the sweet blend of pastry, lemon, cherry and almond all in separate sharp clarity. As depicted, luckily, by the sharp red and yellow colours in the centre of the picture.
What could I actually taste? Maybe a sensation of staleness and indistinct wooliness as depicted by the blurry edges of the pastry. What a disappintment!
Taste and smell blunted I set off on a car journey and listened to the radio. All well and good you might think but clearly without taste and smell some other senses are upping their game. Despite having seen the news reports of the return of two Iranian hostages I was quite unprepared for the audio file of the families reunions, something done in private and away from official cameras.
Only the audiofile reveals the tears of the hostages and their families as they are reunited. I became a weepy, damp, mess and pulled over into a layby to sort myself out and continue to drive safely. The layby was gloriously filled with roadside daffodils. They were my salvation.
Definately something to lift the spirits and stop some random in-car blubbing. But serendipity stepped in to make the morning even more special. A sleepy newly emerged bee.
Who scrambled onto the edge of a daffodil and promptly fell asleep in the sun.
Which was just what I needed to sort myself out and drive on. An unexpected start to a very ordinary day.
How does Spring taste to you?
Not a question normally asked, of course,but one that is very important to a canine friend of ours.
Ralph likes to lick flowers. Here he is savouring, the very expensive, flavour of Saffron, from the stigma of Crocus.
Most of us know exactly what he is getting from the experience. But how many humans have ever tasted Daffodil, how many of us even bother to sniff them? Would it even be safe to lick, especially if taken to excess?
Here is Ralph at his version of an all you can eat buffet.
So many Bluebells, so little time, how is a man to choose?
I’m fairly certain I am not going to go down the whole tasting thing with Ralph. Let me be honest, I know exactly what Other thing Ralph and my dogs do to flowers, but this Spring, after consideration of the location and risk analysis, I am going to sniff more Spring Flowers. What have I been missing?
Yesterday was bright in our corner of Cornwall/ England. So bright in fact that we largely forgot that there had been some easement in Covid restrictions. We could have met another household in our garden or theirs or any other outdoor space but instead just pottered about in the garden making it ready for Spring. The only loosening of behaviours was on a Zoom meeting where the Bookclub arranged an outdoor real life book club meet up next month. Yesterday we discussed literary connections to foolishness as we are close to April 1st . It was good to see so many readers on screen to discuss nonsense. The day finished with a swim in the sunshine, the water temperature had dropped a bit and the currents were not kind but sunshine on your face makes it easier to cope with these things. The daffodils at the top and bottom of this blog have popped their fancy heads up in the old part of the cemetery near @theoldmortuary. They look like fancy hats ready for a very dressed up occasion.
There is also a fine crop of wild garlic, some of which I will harvest later today if the sun stays out. Yesterday I harvested an image from the Victorian part of the graveyard. An eternal message that has been made abstract by Lichen and illuminated by sunshine.
Our first bunch of supermarket daffodils illustrate this blog today. They have just emerged from tight buds. Strange to think that daffodils were a favourite subject when pondering started. Now there are so many favourite subjects that I would not have imagined a year ago.
My maternal grandmother would often say ” Some of us quite enjoyed the war you know”
I cant say I’ve enjoyed the pandemic, could anyone? It has forced me to adapt my life and I enjoy many of those adaptations. The unexpected benefits of a pretty dire period of history.
Daffodils are also known as the Heralds of Spring. I think mid- January is pushing that title a bit, particularly in Cornwall where daffodils arrive early and long before the worst of the winter weather. Regardless of their reputation they are very welcome guests @theoldmortuary , particularly in this tricksy period of the pandemic. Maybe the next time I buy the first supermarket daffodils of the season, life will have taken on a more easily navigated road map and just possibly I will have stopped pondering Pandemically.
The quiet observance of two resin ruminants. One of our regular and frequent walks on the Stonehouse Peninsular takes in part of the Southwest Coast Path, Hugo and Lola always like a sniff of these two quiet cows.
They ruminate on a green which would have been a historic walk from a tunnel where animals were unloaded to walk across the green to a slaughterhouse that was part of the Royal William Victualling Yard. The place where the Royal Navy loaded up ships with food, drink, and essentials to keep sailors fed and effective.
We did a couple of circuits of our usual walk once in each direction. A friend had told me she had seen a rare daffodil on New Years Eve . I didnt find it first time around so I put on more clothing, the wind was brutal, and walked back in the opposite direction. Success!
A single clump of Grand Primo Citronaire.
Identified by Kathy’s photograph from a Daffodil Identification Day.
10,000 steps, ruminating ruminants and Grand Primo Citronaire. What more could I possibly want from an hours exercise!
I realised yesterday that in one virus induced action all of my friends have become people I no longer see.
Some of those friendships have 55 years of longevity graduating down to those that have a tiny lifespan of a few weeks or months and may have fizzled to nothing in normal times. The pandemic preserves them all equally in digital ice like fertilised eggs at a fertility clinic. Granted equal potential to survive, or not, over this period of real life isolation. Many of them will be re-implanted into my future life to thrive, inevitably some of them won’t make it and they will be replaced by new friendships created during this highly unusual circumstance . Thinking about this is overwhelmingly sad if I consider the people I may never see or interact with again.
Thankfully none of us know specifically on which metaphorical doors the plague crosses will appear.
I realise fully that this is a highly pessimistic blog and in part it was induced by a photograph that I took a couple of years ago either in Cuba or Spain.
It was lost for a long while in my pile of digital images . Once I rediscovered it it was filed , waiting for its appropriate moment in the sun. Meloncholia seeps from this image but I love it .
For all our sakes I have some gorgeous optimistic flower images to lighten the mood.
A gift from a new friend. A lovely gesture .
Dead Mother’s Day ( and grandmas). It’s Mother s Day in the UK and Social Distancing and Social Isolation protocols suggest that the last people on the planet who should be visited are grandmas and mother’s only within the existing regulations.
The cemetery opposite @theoldmortuary is always well visited on Mother’s Day, but this year it was busy. The more contemporary grave areas are alive today with the colours of bouquets and pot plants.
It was to the old part of the cemetery we popped this evening . To find the unusual and beautiful daffodils planted centuries ago for mourned mums and grandmas.
Even the graves had their faces turned to the setting sun and looked beautiful in their shabby uncared for ways.
The two most delicious daffodils were these two.
Today not having a mum or a grandma didn’t feel quite so bad
theoldmortuary.design 