As a number of people know, I have had a serious long-term relationship with cowslips (Primula veris). Some of the background to this unrequited fascination is revealed in a piece posted to my blogg (www.aggravations.org) on 24 July 2016: The tale of a cowslip, in which I reveal “my love of cowslips and a new-found admiration for civil engineering earthworks”.
Visiting the UK in 2011 we happen upon a very small clump of cowslips in a suburban gateway. I insist on photographs.
Later on during that same trip those first photos become immaterial. I cause some confusion for other drivers at a junction near Shepton Mallet (Babycham anyone?) by circumnavigating a roundabout on which grows a fine crop of cowslips guarded by a flock of concrete sheep.
When one is on a holiday, as I then was, one of the matters that can cause anxiety is remembering to take a gift for those of your family and friends who are on the nearside of a notional line separating those in the must-get-a-present set from everyone else.
When it comes to the giving of gifts it seems to me that there are two stand-out types. One – in my experience the majority – get around to the job late in their time away or on holiday and then carry it out with a sense of duty, trying to match a gift with what they believe the recipient might find amusing. As long as it fits into the carry-on bag. (Hands up those who remember the carry-on bag.)
How I wish I was in the second notable type: the Great and Thoughtful Givers. They seem to carry round a sort of mental spreadsheet, specifying each friend’s particular quirks and interests. This database is close to the top of their consciousness and regularly accessed. Set this person down in a second hand bookshop, at a garage sale or in an antique shop and they seamlessly make the connection between an object they spot and the person in their network, family or friend, for whom it would provide pleasure.
I am lucky enough to be in the network of one of the very best of the Great and Thoughtful Givers. The captain of the team.
However the particular incident recorded here was not of the antique shop variety; rather, it was Internet-assisted. Knowing of my harmless obsession as well as my birthday, this person searched the Internet for an Australian source of cowslips. Perhaps surprisingly a nursery in Queensland came up trumps. (allrareherbs.com.au)
While researching this story it has come to my attention that a Ms S. of Queanbeyan sourced a cowslip or two from Lambley’s in Ascot near Ballarat in Victoria, which seems much more likely (info@lambley.com.au).
Anyway, for my birthday I was presented with a small, green soggy mass, somewhat seaweed-like, in a minuscule plastic container, with the clump itself surrounded by what appeared to be damp blotting paper and protective layers of cardboard and string – also damp.
It was a thrill to see the plastic tag specifying the entity’s apparent botanical form:
But such was the unprepossessing nature of the item that it seemed likely that hope and trust would fail to triumph over any probability of a future life. ‘Unprepossessing’ is a gentler description than spindly and forlorn-looking.
Anyway it was set into one of my best little ceramic pots and placed gently down in first one and then another spot near the back door considered ‘highly desirable’. Time passed, as do the season’s blossoms. Such was the lack of change in the condition and countenance of the item that some days came and went without me stopping and stooping to inspect it. To all intents and purposes it was sometimes forgotten!
About a week ago, on Tuesday 6 October 2020, the miracle happened:
One should never doubt the resilience of nature and the power it has over us mere mortals, sometimes exercised in a pernicious fashion. But together with Nature we can do miracles. And humankind isn’t all bad. Some have in their own nature the capacity to think kindly of those they know and to brighten the world with little parcels of goodness.
