By Madeleine Love

My father in law gave me some bulbs about 15 years ago not long after we bought our house at Marysville. The bulbs were called “hoop petticoats”. They promised bright yellow flowers – a favourite colour – full of happiness, and I eagerly planted them.

They didn’t flower. A year or so later my father in law asked me if they’d flowered. No. He said they’d never flowered for him either. Thanks for the dud bulbs Dad! But I had no call for complaint because he’d also given some to my sister in law and they’d flowered for her. Oh well.

Year after year the bulbs failed to flower but I never removed them because that was where they lived now.

We had a fire at Marysville. The house burned down. Except for the fact that there is more demolished bare earth at Marysville than anything else, the Spring is looking lovely. All the little bulbs that lived safe underground have popped up, and with no houses, fences or trees, Marysville looks like a pretty little sea of daffodils, jonquils and early cheers.

And strangely I noticed a new set of flowers at our house… flowers I’d never seen before… We have a little sea of bright yellow hoop petticoats gracing the front lawn.

There’s something special about this. I’m thinking latent beauty. It surrounds us, waiting to emerge at the right moment. So much waits hidden for the right moment. So much love has come forth at Marysville. Qualities one would never have seen nor shared were it not for the right moment.