34. Daffodils

I have a bunch of daffs on my desk at the moment. They arrived as pallid green stalks and became, over the course of a week, virulent yellow trumpets of Spring.

In the car going from London to anywhere nicer suddenly patches of sunshine whir past, bobbing in the wind.

If I can possibly manage it, a trip to North Yorkshire at around this time is like going to Daffodil heaven. The churchyard in Sowerby is an astonishing and moving mixture of crumbling gravestones and fresh, bright flowers - the daffs heedless of the etiquette of mourning, determined only to live the loudest, yellowest life they can.

I know some people find them vulgar, or just ordinary. But they are harbingers of better times to come. Their golden heads and emerald bodies are a reminder to us that the sun will shine again and we will feel its warmth on our skin. We will sit outside in short sleeves with our friends and sleep with the windows open. We will walk our dogs in flip-flops and run into the sea to cool down.

All that, from a bunch of daffodils. They're golden moments of hope.