Sense of wonder….

"I must hang on to my sense of wonder - I must hang on to my sense of wonder - I must hang on to my sense of wonder - I must hang on to my sense of wonder - I must hang on to my sense of wonder…"

“Five-hundred times please boy.” He shouted.

And he was right. - I must hang on to my sense of wonder -

I found this scatter of burnt, burnished sunshine growing on the grassy verge of our lane, hiding from the spotlights in the longer grass.

Such a beauty that I wanted to share it, a flower I’d seldom seen before, so seldom that I didn’t know its name - so looked it up in my book of plants.

Pilosella aurantiaca – Orange Hawkweed, Devil’s Paintbrush, Fox-and-cubs, Grim-the-collier, a Fireweed. One of the Asteraceae, so plentiful in the Alpine regions of central and southern Europe, even protected in some areas, and this small clump beneath the mountains in that part of Wales I think my own, brightening still further an already full-bright day.

Low growing, shallow fibrous rooted, a lush ground clinging rosette of lanceolate leaves, long leafless stems blowing in the breeze and hairy, bleeding white when picked, all dispersed by wind for seed and fire to travel on.

A wonder.

No weed this Devil’s paintbrush fiery on our grass grown lane, but still quarantined in far flung Tasmania from its borders, pulling and burning every wind-born flower that falls upon its distant shores. No wonder there then.

I wonder where in some few weeks time this one will travel outwards and onwards, caught upon the breeze and gone.

I wonder - and I must hang on to my sense of wonder

Such a small thing this flower, but causing me to stop my car as I glimpse it from the corner of my eye, crouching down (bad back and all) to take this single picture. Yes, I must hang on to my sense of wonder - without it I am diminished.

After all, what else is there?