When I was a child I was always mystified by the walks around the garden that my father and grandfather would undertake shortly after the latter arrived to visit. I’d see them as I was playing outside, or through the window from inside, and be baffled. What could they possibly be looking at?
Fast-forward three decades and I’m the one pinching my mum’s clogs to inspect my parents’ dinky and beautifully appointed garden. My dad’s complaining about the hellebores, which haven’t naturalised as well as in the garden I used to watch him walk his father around. It’s something else that catches my eye: the bold, bright green crown of leaves of a primrose (Primula vulgaris to come. In the midst of a drizzly, gloomy month, there it was: a beacon of hope.
