The House Husband

In our hot border there are a few strange things growing. Last year they looked like badly developed cabbages. This year they have spent a long time threatening to become triffids. And now they are out and are totally amazing! Mulliens or, as we prefer, Verbascum banana custard, is huge. It can grow long, thick spires up to nine feet high which are covered in little yellow flowers. These spires have smaller spires on them which are also covered in little yellow flowers. Coming from the base are more, smaller spires, also with the flowers. It is an amazing plant. I include a photograph of them and I’m using Day-z for scale. She’s the small black dot in the middle.

Day-z showing she's not afraid of the Triffids.

We had no idea they would be so big and dominant. But we’re glad they are. They are, after all, well impressive! Here’s a close up of the little yellow flowers.

Close up of Verbascum Banana Custard

We are thinking of adopting them.

Spring has sprung a little late this year. There has been a general outpouring of grief over the total lack of daffodils. It was so bad that on the magazine programme, The One Show on BBC1, they had a daff-map and asked viewers to send in photographs of any that had appeared. The map was not very yellow!

The first (live) daffs I saw this year were in a couple of flower boxes outside Pizza Express in Castle Street, which I don’t really count. They might have been warmed up in a greenhouse before being moved!

There was a notice in the park late last year, which loudly proclaimed that 10,000 daff bulbs had been planted along the avenue of trees. This was something to look forward to! Sadly there has been no sight of any of them. Until this afternoon, that is.

Walking to the station this morning, I noted that the crocuses I photographed last week are nearly all gone, to be replaced with a fair few yellow daffodils, gradually appearing. They are spread through the terrace and along the path. They always look wonderful so I’m just waiting. I will have my camera with me.

I was at uni then at lunch with Mirinda today. I arrived home at about 4:30 so I saddled up the poodles and took them for a wonderful afternoon jaunt in the park. And, guess what? Yep. Daffs are starting to appear between the trees along the avenue! It’s starting to look wonderful. It will only get better.

After a dismal winter and a horrendously wet February, this is exactly what we need. Fresh and yellow, new buds on trees and the sun still in the sky at 7pm. Love it.