Like so much from primary school I can only remember the first 2 lines of an Easter hymn:

“At Easter time the village fayre,

And lovely flowers bloom everywhere”

We would croak out of tune, but the sentiment has stayed with me. No village fayres this year, but no bloomin’ pandemic is stopping those blooming flowers.

Flowers are springing up all over the place. In woodlands there’s a dash to flower and be pollinated before the canopy of leaves high in the trees shuts out the sun. Wood anemones and primroses are at their very best for Easter.

In hedgerows the numerous types of plum are coming out – cherry plum now, soon to be followed by sloe. In the fields cowslips and violets attract bees. Sadly there are all too few fields with a diversity of wild flowers remaining.

This year I won’t be able to visit these special Easter flowers. I do have snakes head fritillaries in my garden, but I struggle to keep pasqueflowers alive for more than a year or two. So, I think I’ll go in search of another favourite.

Foot note: I bothered to look up my school hymn and it turns out it’s actually

“At Easter time the lilies fair,

And lovely flowers bloom everywhere”

So, this is most likely a case of me not paying attention at school or possibly misremembering. There’s a fine tradition of misinterpretation of song lyrics. Surely Freddie Mercury sang “Spare him his life from his warm sausage tea” in Bohemian Rhapsody and the Eurythmics “Sweet dreams are made of cheese”.

Does anyone else recall a TV ad in the 1980s for Maxell video tapes (made in Telford) with a chap listening to Desmond Decker on an inferior tape and hearing “Oh, oh me ear’s are alight”? That one still makes me chuckle...