Our little blue flowers

Maura and I like to walk down Station Road, to the traffic circle, take a left and walk along Strand Road to Portmarnock Village.

Before you reach the traffic circle, but after you have passed the last of the apartment blocks, there is a rough area beside the sidewalk, comprising part hedge, part weeds, and thick overgrown grass, but there is something else. In the Spring there is a little blue flower, composed of four petals forming a cup, at the end of a long stem; quite content to enjoy the sunshine and the nutrients it requires, but making no demands on its neighbours, nor on passers by. Maura and I pick a few, and bring them home to decorate our table, where they enchant us with their beauty and simplicity. There are others, like the small yellow flowers which line the pathway down to the beach.

Sometimes I think of the flowers uniquely, and then, at other times, I think of them as part of Nature, and of the way in which they play their part unobtrusively, in harmony with the oceans, the mountains..........