Dearest reader,
I bought a simple bundle of daffodils still in buds from my local supermarket. I was delighted by the thought of those bright yellow flowers with a center like a trumpet horn. The wrapper said "imported from England" and in my mind I saw an oldtime farm with crooked, moss covered stone fences where daffodils are grown in weather-beaten green houses. I shall have myself a piece of England, I thought, and left the shop with my four-euro English daffodils while forgetting everything else I needed to buy.
On my way home flakes of wet snow layzily falling spotted the otherwise grey Thursday evening in brief white dots. It was five o'clock and I was using a broken blue umbrella. At home I placed the flowers in a unsuitable crystal vase and wondered, over my modest omelette, how long it would take the buds to open: they looked so dry and small and green that is was hard to believe bright petals could ever unfold out of them. That night I went to sleep assuming it would take several days before seeing even a single daffodil bursting into bloom.
Next morning at six when, with sleep still sitting on my eyes, I stepped in to my dim kitchen and saw that some of the daffodil buds had opened during the night. I gasped. A sudden gladness took over me because even in a gloomy, cold light of an early Finnish morning in March the daffodils were bright and radiant and they seemd to be tooting out a cheerful, silent, sunshiny tune from their inflorescence trumpets. I went closer, touched their butterly petals and stared at this extraordinary freshness of a colour so vibrant it almost hurt.
Later on that day more buds opened. This English daffodil was eager to live and be beautiful. Yesterday it had been a young bud but today it started a life as a blossom. A new beginning. A rebirth. A new spring. And who could argue it isn't revolutionary.
What is your favorite Spring flower?
Yours truly,
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