DAFFODILS IN DECEMBER AND A LOVELY ENCOUNTER

We were up and out this morning very early and at Waitrose by 7.30 - we both remarked how we were so glad that we were retired and didn't have to get up and go to work in the dark!  We were told that there were hordes of people queuing at the doors when they opened at 7.00 a.m. so we missed that rush, thankfully.

Halfway round, we stopped for our free coffee - I chatted with the man in front of me in the queue, as you I do and he commented when he saw my camera so I told him about Blip.  He said he used to work on the local newspaper, and as writing had been his job, he didn’t do much now.  I told him about the daffodils on a roundabout near us and said they were going to be my subject for today, so that’s where we were going after we had finished shopping.  

He then shared with me that he and his wife were treating themselves to breakfast and then at 12 noon, they were meeting their family and going to have a drink in honour of their 34 year old son whom they had buried a year ago today.  They were meeting in the Town Gardens by the seat they had put there in his memory - I mentioned we had been up there a few weeks ago and had probably seen the seat, as we had stopped and read the inscriptions on most of them.  I shall be thinking of them at 12 o'clock!  

It was quite difficult getting this photograph, as the daffodils were on a large roundabout where several very busy roads converge, so I had to zoom in, as I didn’t dare try and get closer to them.  Actually Mr. HCB had forbidden me to cross the road and I thought I had better do as I was told (for once!)  I don't ever remember seeing daffodils out just before Christmas - in fact, round here, when they are out in time for Mothering Sunday, we often see children picking them - obviously to give to their mothers instead of buying them!

So, on a sunny December day, enjoy these daffodils with me.  Not at all like Christmas, but a reminder that things are often not quite what we expect and sometimes we are surprised by a joyous sight.

The words “daffodils” and “Wordsworth” go hand in hand - at least for us in the UK and I thought of this poem today:

There are two versions - this is the “first” composed in 1804:

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of dancing Daffodils;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: 
A poet could not but be gay
In such a laughing company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.

William Wordsworth