Daisy Chains

Spring has arrived! We know it's more spring than winter when there are enough daisies to sit and make daisy chains, without having to move from one spot, just reaching out to choose another flower with a stem of the requisite thickness and length for optimum daisy chain production.

This weekend the sun has been shining and waking up all the flowers. They're late this year as we’ve had a lot of rain and a relatively cold winter, but now the daisies have signaled the wake up call and the pypies are also flowering, the almond blossom is out, the ducks are chasing each other all over the place and we've emerged from layers of clothes into T-shirts, whenever we're out of the still chilly wind.

My husband lured me away from the chores yesterday to wander the property and take the first ceremonial photos of the children frolicking in fields of daisies. Each year we try to get the ultimate shot and are usually defeated by the ferocious glare of the carpets of white flowers under a brilliant sun, a white that digital cameras struggle to do justice to. Each year we keep trying. The children are tolerant of our efforts, becoming child models with varying degrees of complaisance. Our son opted out this year, with his forced grimace that is the only expression the camera can catch these days and his eyes squinting against the glare. The girls were absorbed enough in making their daisy chains to oblige and Amy, the dog, posed prettily in between them without even being told to.

It's still cool enough for a fire in the evenings and I'm cooking a Sunday roast as we speak, so there's a long way to go till summer is here, but the daisies are the first sign of an emergence from winter and we revel in them at the only time of year when our landscape is green and flower-filled, lush and richly embroidered with colour.