They had already been given too much importance by a poet named Herrick who said ‘’Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon;”

And then too many teachers had taught me how William Wordsworth went mad over them saying ‘’I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

But of course when I saw entire troops of this parasol, petticoat and cupcake shaped flower in orange, golden yellow, white and cream abundance, as if it just wanted to butter up everyone under it and above it, I was hooked. It turned into a mystical, golden yellow daffodil day that cleaned out all the debris, disappointments, dismal people and pestilential pests from my hair, leaving it clean and soft and flowered with grace.

Daffodil Day could do no wrong! The sun shone down tenderly till nine p.m, the potato sandwiches tasted great, the lemon juice was cool and tart, and everything benevolent, burnished and blooming was gifted by that boulevard of daffodils!

This vivacious flower has even survived two strange names it was given in the past – ‘Affodyl’ and even worse, ‘daffadowndyllyes’.

In Elizabethan times daffodils grew so generously in the fields near London, that market women could fill up baskets with them and sell them daily for pennies. The Welsh very wisely have adopted it as their national flower.

I read that daffodils don’t seem to like growing under a rookery – where rooks grow their nests! This made the plant interesting.

Even more startling was the fact that these golden, orange, lemon yellow and white flowers can be poisonous. This flower also called Narcissus (the word comes from the Greek

narke, ‘’numbness’’ has bulbs that can cause paralysis of the central nervous system, causing death! In the olden days, physicians and herbal doctors unaware of this deathly side to this flower, used its bulbs to treat people suffering from hysteria and epilepsy! How tragic must have been some of the cases treated by the daffodil doctors.

In early April you can see Hoop Petticoat daffodils in some gardens in London; they are aptly named! That amazing day of the creamy petticoat flowers with their poisonous bulbs taught me that life is like the butterball riches and the gruesome geeks that will always litter its garden. We only have to learn how to soak up one and weed out the other!