I always find this time of year particularly challenging because of the shorter hours of daylight, poorer weather conditions and the colder temperatures. Being paid to travel around the beautiful lanes of Norfolk is an absoute delight during the warmer months, but at this time of year road are prone to flooding and potholes lurk in a sinister way beneath the water, out of sight and you have to be careful and I seem to spend time having to wash increasing layers of muck off my car. Driving after dark is no fun with the modern LED headlights on cars approaching at speed and it seems that even with fifty years of driving experience behind me, those who are half my age seem to have double my confidence and approach at high speed causing me to brake. I look forward to longer, warmer days with eager anticipation.
I was travelling home from a meeting the other day and there at the side of the road was a little clump of daffodils wafting merrily in the breeze as though somebody had failed to mention that it was only January and they should have still been tucked away in their bulbs, or at the best just peeping out from the soil. This cheerful little bunch was in full flower and for a few moments I might have been led to believe that we were in March or April. I found myself reflecting on the famous words penned by William Wordsworth at the beginning of the nineteenth century as I drove along.
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of dancing Daffodils;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.
Wordsworth is reputed to be walking with his sister in April 1802 close to Ullswater in the Lake District when they spied a long belt of daffodils which prompted him to write his now famous words.
What I saw as I travelled along the lane in Norfolk and the end of January 2026 could hardly be described as “a host of dancing daffodils” in truth, there was just a small clump of maybe no more than a dozen flowers, but I didn’t expect to see them so early in the year and it did my heart good and I could understand why the bard had been moved to write his famous poem. The Bible reading for Sunday 8th March see Jesus teaching his disciples that they were to be like the light of God shining in a darkened world and my little clump of roadside daffodils reminded me how much we need those signs of hope in our world.
I was reminded once again about my role in life, the world feels to me a dark place and it is a vital part of my calling to be one who reflects the light of God in the world today, not only by the things I say, but by the life I live and maybe that is a message for us all.
What are the signs that give you hope in these dark days?