Monday, August 17, 2009

The daffodils (present)


My life is made up of a myriad of people, ideas, places etc. I am sharing them with you - because it is what makes my life such a colourful patchwork and so full of fun!
Look what is in my garden! Daffodils!!!!
My grandfather was a grand old man. He had a happy, round face and always smiled. His head was completely bald, except for a band of hair round the rim of his head. You know the idea where you put a pot on a child's head, and cut around the pot - and then they are then left with some hair on the top of their heads? Grandfather got the inverted pot treatment! He lost his hair (on top of his head) when he was a young man in his 20's. It never bothered him though.
Opa (as we called him) was a well known daffodil grower. He cross bred daffodils, he got to name his creations (one he named after his daughter - Susy), and had a passion for them his whole life long.
He was already well into his 80's when they caught him riding his bicycle (in Holland) - to his beloved patch of land where the daffodils bloomed. He was a danger on that bike at his age, but you just could not keep him away.
I have not inherited his green fingers or his precious knowledge of growing these gorgeous flowers. But a strange thing has happened. Through the years, dad passed along daffodil bulbs (as gifts) from his work - he worked here in South Africa in the same industry as Opa. Of all the bulbs he passed along, the only ones which keep coming up year after year, are the daffodils. The other kinds of bulbs just wither away after they have bloomed 1 year, but the daffodils keep coming back every year.
And every year, when they show their sunny faces in my garden, I am reminded - perhaps I am more of my grandfathers offspring, than even I realised.

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