Last week, my youngest daughter and I had a beautiful walk home from school. It was the first time I’d managed to pick her up since breaking my foot 6 weeks ago. The sun was shining and the air was warm- spring had finally sprung!

As we walked, slowly home (I’d love to say this was a deliberate, mindful decision, but in truth it was really the limitations of walking in a fracture boot) we noticed the grass verges lining our route had grown super long and were absolutely brimming with dandelions- in seed, in flower, completely bare, in bud.  

I watched as my daughter dived into the long grass, immersed herself up to her knees, and started picking up various specimens. She blew them into her face and hair, held them, picked at the stems (inspecting the white milk oozing onto her fingers), kicked them, walked through them, and got seeds stuck, well, everywhere!

As she tenderly clasped the weeds in her little hands, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to teach her the life cycle of a dandelion. She stood poking and studying the flowers intently as I gathered dandelions in different stages of development, and explained how they grew.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and she gasped in absolute amazement before exclaiming “You mean these yellow flowers AND the dandelion clocks are actually THE SAME THING?!!”. 

It was a beautiful moment full of awe, wonder and joy. As she excitedly ran ahead with her newfound knowledge, keen to find more dandelions in a different patch of grass, my eyes began to see these weeds in a new light.