........the Primrose Path

Lead me down the primrose path any day!

The wild English Primrose was always my favorite flower as a child and I wish so much I could grow it here. 'Going primrosing' was a joyful event, a Spring afternoon pastime of country lovers. Ushering in Spring, celebrating Easter time, often the blooms were even ready for celebrating 'Mothering Sunday' as we called 'Mother's Day'.

On with the wellies (Wellington boots) as the fields were usually muddy from Spring rains. Tuck a handful of lengths of soft cotton string in a pocket. A glance at puffy clouds racing across the Southwest sky from the English Channel towards the tors of Dartmoor, showers later for sure.

Along the lanes we hurried, snapping a yard long strong twig from the hedgerow, and almost running down narrower lanes, just one farm tractor wide, toward the little village of Edginswell ~ just about 20 minutes in the fresh breeze.

The tiered orchard had heritage apple trees with gnarled trunks and pretty pink and white blossoms. My memory recalls the farmer was kind and allowed swarms of children to clamber noisily, but carefully, over his land. The primroses, with wild violets tucked between, smothered the grassy slopes. We gathered small bunches in our hands, surrounding the pale yellow flowers with a few glossy textured leaves, tied each with a piece of that soft string, leaving ends long enough to tie to the hazelnut twig. Within an hour, the twig would have bunches hanging along its entire length and, resting it over a shoulder, the trip home up the lanes, a climb across a stile and through a field, would take no time.

Some for the elderly neighbors who couldn't get out. A bunch for the nice man across the street who grew vegetables and sold them from his little barn. A bunch set aside for Tom, our milkman, who came every morning with a fresh pint of Guernsey with the thick cream at the top of the bottle, and half a dozen new laid brown eggs. The rest were placed in Mum's china vases, cream jugs, odd glasses. All around the house these simple pale yellow flowers caught one's eye from tabletops, the tiled mantelpiece, the kitchen window sill, a bathroom shelf. Primroses declared Spring was officially 'around the house'.

..................A memory of my childhood in England...........

Above, a page from the chapter MARCH in The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady ~ Edith Holden's amazing naturalist's diary written in 1906. She captured so well the beauty of the simple wild flowers such as primrose and violet.