Cowslip

I didn't ask Matthew to mow round the clumps of wildflowers but he did anyway- which is good. We have a lot of cowslip this year, but only (in any quantity) in the lawn; I don't know where it comes from; possibly out of a seed packet; I'm not good at remembering all the things I've scattered.

According to Wikipedia cowslip is an old country word for cow dung (and there was I thinking it related to the other end of the animal) and was applied to the flower because of its liking for muck. Other common names- still according to Wikipedia- are cuy lippe, herb peter, paigle, peggle, key flower, key of heaven, fairy cups, petty mulleins, crewel, buckles, palsywort, and plumrocks. Common? I've never come across any of them before. Most of them are prettier or quainter than cowslip- but I don't suppose there's any way people can be persuaded to start talking about herb peter or crewel. Names stick. Besides cowslip is in Shakespeare.

The botanical name is primula veris.

A Royal Birthday

I hadn't realised it was Queen Victoria's 200th birthday until I switched my mother's TV to BBC 2 and there was Lucy Worsley gossiping away about Victoria and Albert.

After the documentary, the fiction: 2009's Young Victoria- the movie with Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend in which Albert takes a bullet for her.

It's a good story I suppose- young Queen, handsome prince, fairy tale wedding; leastways we don't seem to mind hearing it again and again.

Only 200 years? The stretch of time between the early 19th century and the early 21st seems so much longer.