Blue hyacinths

I like blue hyacinths the best. This Christmas my brother and my sister in law gave me these. Once upon a time my mother would plant a pot of blue hyacinths for me every year that I was away at university. Then at Christmas when I went home, there they were - flowers of intense blue, their scent filling the room. And I would take them back to university with me, to that north country where the return of spring was slower to appear and the hyacinths held a promise during the long dark. And I thought of my mother thinking of me while I wasn't at home any more and planting those blue hyacinths for me because I liked them.