Ask this Welsh born Caerphilly girl and her favourite flower it’s ALWAYS daffodils. Today I am thinking of what daffodils mean to me, and as always, it is beyond the scent and yellow petal sunshine. Hiraeth is what I feel, that Welsh word for which there is no translation, that longing for a past that can never be again, that belonging, and everything that no words can ever describe. By wearing or being surrounded by our national flower on our national day, there is Welsh community.

I used to have half a day off school back home, with a large leek secured somehow to my uniform, we must have made a funny sight. You never question these things, never realised that it is your very identity that is being formed. No other flower, and there are many beautiful ones, can ever match the feeling I hold for daffodils.

We have no daffodils in bloom yet here in our Cheshire canalside cutting garden, but these gorgeous narcissi are from Evolve Flowers.

I’m off to put the griddle on for welsh cakes – made by my darling dad in East Moors Steel works, it will outlast us all!