Yesterday's Yellow

Time has run away with me this week and I've only sat down today to think rainbow colours and yellow in particular but I have a post of contrasts.

First of all I've made a small grid of local road signs. These are rather prosaic perhaps, but with much yellow nonetheless. Indeed, I hadn't realised until I started looking just how much yellow there is to be found on British signage.

On another tack altogether, yellow flowers are all over our gardens now here in the UK as spring has well and truly sprung. Everywhere you look there are cultivated daffodils and crocuses and all those millions of wild dandelions and celandines.

I gave a short talk recently to my weekly French class about the language of flowers and I thought I'd share some of this with you (not in my rather dodgy French, you'll be glad to hear ...). The sending of messages through flowers was fashionable in Britain, France and the USA in the 19th century and often, though not always, expressed feelings of love or friendship. When I was researching the idea, I found some charming thoughts.

These yellow crocus flowers are said to bring gaiety and the joy of youth,

this mixed clump of daffodils from my garden to bring high esteem, love without equal or say 'The sun always shines when I am with you',

and these gentle little primroses nestling in a corner of our garden by a small stone wall might bring silent affection and say, ' I cannot live without you'.

If you're amused by this idea, you will find many, many more references in The Forgotten Language of Flowers. This is a long list of British flowers and trees, both wild and cultivated, with their meanings. The language of flowers was reportedly brought to the UK in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the wife of the then British Ambassador to Constantinople.

My thoughts as I looked through the list were that I might want to consider my choice carefully next time I buy flowers for a friend!