Salute the Daffodil.

So bold and brave a flower, the daffodil. Standing shoulder to shoulder, usually alone in massed ranks of yellow and white livery, they are pre-eminent in the van of the floral army come to raise the siege of winter. The daffodil is the flower that makes me wish I were a poet. But if I were, my brave fellows would shun all fluttering and dancing in the breeze. My daffodils would be seen riding with the Rohan cavalry.

That regiment of heroes is largely spent now, their serried ranks bent low with the dead and the dying. Their job is done and the field cleared for tulips to grace the gardens and bluebells to bedeck the woodland floor. And just to show that the frigid queen is dead or near defeat, young lambs were stretched out asleep in the sunshine today, their mothers sitting heads-up, relaxed but ever vigilant. And in this brave new world was heard the first visitor from southern climes: a chiffchaff sang from a nearby tree.