onionbagblog

It’s only a daffodil, Jase.

It may only be a daffodil to you, but it’s MY daffodil. Yep - that’s right: Forty-one years of cultivation (me, not the daff) and this is the first little flowery thing that I have grown from scratch.

Cripes.

I admit that optimism wasn’t exactly abound back in those dark days of mid-November when I returned from B & Q with a cheapo bag of daffodil bulbs. A rushed (and seasonably very late) planting of the little buggers was a bit wayward as well.

Truth be told, I got bored digging the endless holes, and then measuring the correct distance between each bulb. I ended up trampling a few into the ground, and then pondering what a waste of a rural exercise this had all been.

It didn’t help that the Great Wivenhoe Winter of 2010 settled in for, ohhh, six months the day after the daffs were planted. The pesky squirrels of Park Road then had plenty of fun, digging up cheapo B & Q bulbs, under the misguided thought that they were actually edible.

The New Year celebrations saw more snow and ice around these estuary parts. It didn’t see any daff action. I wandered lonely as a cloud up to Wivenhoe Cross come February, and had green finger envy as the Wivenhoe in Bloom daffs started to bloody bloom.

We’re buggered, I thought.

Beware the Ides of March though; beware @AnnaJCowen and her constant taunts that a countryside garden is beyond my grasp. The Golden Days of this Wivenhoe spring (steady) have delivered.

What do we do now - eat them?

Looks like I’ve got a lot to learn…