Daffodil boy

During our first two weeks in England we probably visited over a dozen different bookshops.  Big ones, small ones, new, used.  It didn't matter.  Every time we passed a shop that sold books, we went in.  The kids were so overjoyed to see so many books in English.

It was on one of those first trips that our kids discovered just how prolific Enid Blyton was.  Her books are absolutely everywhere here, and now we're not sure how we lived without so many of them.  Kitty Bill, in particular, found a charming little picture book at a charity shop called The Yellow Trumpets.  It's a book about some fairy boys who make noisy trumpets, get in a bit of trouble for it, and end up hiding them in the flowers-- thus creating daffodils*.

 

It's a cute book, but for some reason it struck a chord with Kitty Bill.  He's a sweet boy, but he hasn't been as interested in the natural world as our girls have always been.  I think he spent our entire time on the farm in Switzerland paying more attention to the tractors than plants or animals.  Even so, after reading this book, I was a little surprised to discover that he didn't remember ever seeing a daffodil before.  Ever.  We had plenty of them growing in our garden over the last two years, and almost every year we have had some in pots growing on our nature table.

So imagine Kitty Bill's surprise this year when he discovered his first trumpet flower!  He ran over and pressed his face up close to examine it completely.  To his utter delight, they have now sprung up everywhere in our garden.  The first few days I'm sure he was checking for signs of fairies...

 

*There are other flowers known by the name of yellow trumpets from the Sarracenia family, or the North American pitcher plant.  Perhaps those are created by other naughty fairies.