Ullswater daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus)

Took the old girl out down Ullswater to recharge the batteries after work ...

Call me sad but its the 212th anniversary of the day that William and Dorothy Wordsworth saw the famous daffodils at Ullswater. Interestingly this year they are spot on cue and the weather today was similar with strong winds - the daffs can come out up to a month earlier in our times of global warming. I'll save you all from repeating the poem and save myself from any re-traumatising but will mention the lines that everyone forgets that are the point of the poem,

'They flash upon that inward eye
That is the bliss of solitude'

... and hopefully pull the poem out of its rote learning image to point out its not about daffodils but memory and the power of visual imagery, in this case its restorative value (but of course in other, less happy circumstances it can be the power it has in its traumatic impact).

The wind was furious... the Lake was rough... When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore & that the little colony had so sprung up -- But as we went along there were more & yet more & at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about & about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here & there a little knot & a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity & unity & life of that one busy highway... -- Rain came on, we were wet.
(15 April, 1802)