VIOLETS ARE BLUE OR MAUVE

These little Violets are struggling away along the top of a weedy, rubbish-strewn wall on my walk to work. I remember as a child seeing swathes of them along the hedgerows, but then I was lucky enough to live in the countryside. Seeing them appear each Spring always reminds me of those days, when even from a very young age I could cycle off for a whole day with a picnic in my bicycle basket, and no one worried about what might happen to me; there were no bogeymen; and the traffic was slow and sensible. I suppose there were bad people even then but they just didn't seem to be in our innocent little world. Or maybe we were just lucky.

Violets also remind me of those little tubes of Parma Violets. I wonder if they still make them.