A White Rose

A sofa day. A legless day. A blip of the bush by the back door.

When this house was shiny and new we planted two rose bushes in the broken ground we were trying to remake into a garden, one on either side, one red, one white. The red bush, a highly cultivated variety whose high blown name I have long forgotten, never flourished, set forth a few small bedraggled blooms and died. The white bush, a semi wild hybrid, has resisted all attempts by poverty of soil, neglectful gardener and digging, widdling pets to kill it off. Each year it produces a crop (or two) of large white flowers that never fail to gladden my eye when it falls upon them.

As a bonus, to one who never fails to weave history and politics into everything, they also prompt reflections on my Yorkist prejudices - particularly in this year that has seen the discovery of the bones of Good King Richard III - and also upon my heroes of Die Weiße Rose., people worth commemorating.