2011 Streak 84/365: Daffodils

2011 Streak 84/365: Walk - 3.78 miles, Time - 1hr 10min, Weather - sunny and mild

Again I follow up a news story. The first time it was artificial flowers on graves and now it is daffodils.

Listening on the radio I heard an item about how the daffodil growers were suffering this year. The cold winter meant that their season was late in starting but the warm weather has meant that the flowers have come out at all at once. There is now a glut which they are finding difficult to harvest.

I don't know why it was a news item, as we are not short of big stories (Japan, Libya, budget, murders) and growing conditions are never perfect for any crop, but at least it gave me a spur to look more closely at the daffodils around me. They are all over the place. I never realised there were quite so many: beside the road, in the middle of roundabouts, in gardens, and on grassy banks. Yellow (and some white) everywhere.

Flowers and landscaping actually make an enormous difference to the feel of a place. As I looked around about the work of the parks department and how important they were in softening the edges of the town and making-up for the lack of architectural stimulation. My big hope is that they are not cut back too much in the spending cuts because it is always the soft services (those that enhance rather than being of direct utility) which are the most vulnerable. yet they are terribly important.

This is on my mind at the moment as a lot of the cuts will kick-in in a weeks time. The Guardian is starting to look at the impact on a lot of service. And tomorrow there will a big protest march and demonstration, in London. So my exercise tomorrow will be trudging along with masses of other chanting slogans. 

It will be a far more significant news story than the plight of daffodil growers but it might in some way be related..