Special Daffodils

A quiet Sunday spent in solitude, having not felt up to driving to the flat. I’ve been quite below par healthwise for the past few weeks. As it was the monthly family service I didn’t go to church this morning. I just find it very distracting with all the pop songs instead of traditional hymns. I prefer a more gentle and reflective approach to worship, so that I can really focus and feel prepared for receiving communion. I can find deep peace by the end of a service, and am sometimes moved to tears (good ones). Sadly the pop songs just don’t do that for me, instead they make me feel quite unsettled, so I stay away. Luckily we have the spoken service on Thursday mornings, which is beautifully simple and surprisingly well attended for a weekday, with lots of laughter afterwards in The Exchange cafe over the road.

These daffodils are special, because Dad planted them, along with many others around the garden. They were Mum’s favourite flowers, she loved the bright yellow colour and the promise of spring. They’re growing underneath the acer tree, which is of course still bare at the moment - hard to believe it bursts with such vibrancy in the summer. Please note that I have deliberately left the leaves on the flowerbed uncleared - it’s an important habitat for all sorts of little creatures over winter, they suppress weeds and degrade to provide good mulch for the soil in summer. It’s going to be a lot of work to get the garden back to Dad’s standards. Several shrubs have reached the end of their time and need replacing, and I have some other ideas too, but we’ll get there.