I KNOW IT'S FLOWER FRIDAY, AND.....

.....I was going to stick with it, but when I saw this little robin just outside our bedroom window early this morning, I decided that he was going to have his moment of glory as my Blip unless of course, I saw something better.

We have been to Leighton Moss Nature Reserve today, but I didn't feel well enough to walk round for almost three hours, so Mr. HCB went off on his own and I sat quietly in the restaurant, watching the birds from the window, taking the occasional photograph, and people watching, but there was nothing as good as this little robin.

However, in the spirit of Blip, I am putting a photograph of a few daffodils along the side of a stream just near the farm, as an extra. I can honestly say I have never seen as many daffodils as I have since we came up to North Yorkshire on holiday. I can well understand the poet saying that he saw "A crowd and host of golden daffodils"! If there are more daffodils in any other part of the country, I would be very surprised.

I do apologise for not commenting and thanking you all for your kind wishes, stars and hearts during this week - I am very grateful to you all, but health-wise, it has not been a good week and as I mentioned at the beginning of the week, internet access has been spasmodic - guess that's always going to be a problem with a farmhouse that has walls three feet thick!

I was going to quote just the first verse of William Wordsworth's poem, composed in 1804, and finally published in 1815, but for those, probably outside the UK who don't know it, here it is in its entirety:

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 golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:-
A Poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund 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.