There are always poppies

I don’t suppose anyone would take any notice of my vote for poppies as the national flower.

Most people, I suspect would regard them as an emblem of the battlefields of Northern France rather than the United Kingdom.  Of course we would respect that and would continue to wear out poppies in November. 

Nevertheless, I think directly or indirectly Brits seem to have taken to the flower in a big way, who could forget the display of poppies around the Tower of London in 2014.

Even so I associate poppies with the summer time (even when it rains all day long). Somehow, out in the fields the poppies seem to weather the wind and rain and go on flourishing. This year the field near us has lots of poppies in, which somehow I find is difficult to capture in a single image; such an expanse of colour.

I know, the eye cheats and supplements the scene with a touch of wonder, but the camera records only what it there – so I cheated and went for an impressionistic approach to the view.

Then of course there are the poppies in the garden – they are enormous by comparison with their cousins in the field – but they don’t weather as well and as soon as it rains one can see evidence of mud splattering on the petals. I think there can be three photographs with them – the overall shape, the texture of the petals and the pistil and stamen

Even so I am still going to campaign for poppies to become the national flower. Perhaps I can encourage an enterprising plant researcher to grow one in red, white and blue!