Spring Has Come

Easter flowers

There is an old saying that sping has come when you can put your foot on three daisies and at The Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle on Wednesday some of the lawns were awash with them. I  was always told it was unlucky to step on a daisy and in the Jubilee Park in Spennymoor as a young girl I had to tread exceedingly warily. My Aunt Bell had a lovely poem she used to recite about daisies but for the life of me I can't remember it and noone else in the family can recollect it either.

In Scotland daisies are known as bairnwort because of children's habit of using them to make daisy chains. The leaves were used in Elizabethan times as a cure for rheumatism and gout.

Ringtons vase with spring flowers

Buttercups and daisies

Oh, the pretty flowers;

Coming ere the Spring-time

To tell of sunny hours

                                   Mary Howitt