A Blue Day...

...not for me but for my newly emerged bowl of hyacinths.  I bought them before Christmas and because they've been in the conservatory which is a little cooler than the house, they've taken their time to flower.  Their gorgeous perfume is now scenting the air beautifully.

According to Greek mythology hyacinth got its name when a young boy named Hyacinth was killed when a discus hit him in the head during a game. A hyacinth sprang from the cut in his head as he lay in the arms of the god Apollo, who was wailing in grief. Wild hyacinths have letter-like patterns on their petals which look like the "A" in Greek which indicates the sound of wailing.
Hyacinths came to Europe from Turkey. A German doctor named Leonhardt Rauwolf, collected samples of hyacinths when he visited Turkey in 1573. By the early 1700s hyacinths were very popular with more than 2,000 cultivars available.