translation and otherness

Firstly, some daffodils for St David’s Day:

Daffodils
Secondly, a Welsh castle:
Continue reading “translation and otherness”

St David’s day

daffodils
As always on March 1st, I have been thinking about daffodils. And that has driven me to A A Milne’s essay on favourite flowers. As he says:

A house with daffodils in it is a house lit up, whether or no the sun be shining outside. Daffodils in a green bowl–and let it snow if it will.

There is no snow forecast – though when did we ever believe a forecast? Whatever the weather, though, I have a jar of sunshine on my windowsill.

narcissus

This picture was irresistible as it seems clear that each narciso (as they are called in Spanish) is enamoured of its own reflection.

Daffodils in a flooded flower bed

Looking for an apt poetical quotation, I find that Sir Aubrey de Vere described the daffodil as “Love-star of the unbeloved March”.

Well, it’s certainly March, and the weather here is undoubtedly unlovely. (That flower bed is at least two inches deep in water at the moment, and it’s at the top of the garden; I dare not venture down to see if the trees in the orchard are knee deep, but I suspect they must be.)

dydd dewi sant

It’s St David’s Day, and they say Tri chynnig i Gymro, so it seems appropriate to post three photos, all taken in Wales.

Chepstow Castle, south Wales

In every town and village
grey stones
grey skies

Continue reading “dydd dewi sant”

‘when daffodils begin to peer’

wild narcissus

In fact, of course, the daffodils in the garden were ‘beginning to peer’ a month ago, but the ones in the photo are a far more local species.

From looking around the web, I think I’ve identified them as narcissus pallidulus.

What isn’t clear from the photo is just how tiny they are.

The fact that they are as pale as their name suggests, and that the petals tend to curl right back rather than standing out, star-like, around the ‘trumpet’ – which is probably no bigger than a single lily-of-the-valley bell – means it’s quite easy to miss them altogether, although they are now about in their thousands in the pine woods along the river bank.