Spring Has Sprung

 "spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the birdies is."

I challenge anyone to find a flower more happy than the Daisy. Granted it may not have the sweetest smell of the floral kingdom but you cannot help but smile to see their bright pale faces. Whether they be the small and perfect specimens found in the lawn that seemed made for chain-making as a child or the bright and fanciful gerberas that grace the windows of florists there is something innocent and pure and joyful about them.

When I was a kid, every spring my dad would recite the same rhyme as above. Him breaking it out was almost more of a herald of the changing seasons than the actual birds returning. At least, as birds were to him. He is not a bird watcher by any means of the imagination, but he does notice them. Where I do not. I don't mean to diminish their importance, because I am sure that they are fascinating in their migratory patterns, but it always was and always will be the flowers that herald the spring and the summer for me.

I am the least plant orientated person every - as a general rule, everything I attempt to grow dies. I cope great flack for not being able to keep something as notorious as mint alive. But I do notice plants, more so than fauna. The ever changing trees from bud to green to autumn reds. There is something beautiful in the consistency of the seasonal changes, whether that change be in the form of leaf or flower.

And, when finally I can place that first jar of daisies next to my desk I know that, with the exception of the odd and unpredictable spring-cold day, winter is over for another year.