I hate daffodils

I took some daffodils into school this week to inspire my Year 12 class in their revision of nature poetry. They were much more interested in the website I brought up on the screen, www.ihatedaffodils.org.uk, where conservationists are complaining that there are too many of the bright solid yellow variety splashed across the countryside leaving less room for the more delicate golden, white and wild variety narcissus pseudonarcissus. Those are the ones the Bard was thinking of in The Winter's Tale:

'…golden daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty'.

Wasn't Narcissus the guy who fell in love with his own reflection? I was also working on some of Aesop's fables with a Year 9 drama class and they improvised the moment when the greedy dog dropped the piece of meat into the river because he thought he saw another dog with an equally juicy piece reflected there. A moral in the 'tail' reminding us of the importance of enjoying what we have and not coveting what our neighbour has, or appears to have.

Appearances can be deceptive. I went for a long walk yesterday morning to suck Spring into my lungs. Ahead was a verge brilliant with yellow which turned out on closer inspection to be a dash of dandelions!

'Nothing is so beautiful as Spring
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush.'

Did I mention that I love Hopkins? It all grows together when there's wet and warm.

The only cure for introspection is imagination when we use our minds to think long about what's beautiful and true. It's a must to get outside and wonder at the world. It's good for the soul.

'I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their "divine, magical, terrifying, ecstatic existence."' (Clyde Kilby)

Speaking of CS Lewis, I was reading my favourite part of The Magician's Nephew with Year 8 when Aslan sings a world into existence. Uncle Andrew is out of sorts and talking too much. Creation commands silence. The cabby got it right. Year 8 decided that we like the cockney cabby so we'll leave the last word to him:

'Watchin' and listenin's the thing at present; not talking.'