Hosts of golden daffodils...

Another picture to celebrate the Hilton Tower's 10th birthday....

About 200 years ago the renowned poet,William Wordsworth, wrote probably his most famous poem about a host of golden daffodils he saw by Ullswater in the Lake District. I wonder what he would have thought about this host in the shadow of the Hilton Tower in Manchester?

They are in St John’s Gardens just off Deansgate. Surrounded by traffic and skyscrapers being built on Spinningfields, it’s a little oasis of calm and bird song in the city centre. The immediate area of the gardens is about to become a building site itself when the city creates the St John’s Quarter with more skyscrapers, offices, homes and a huge, iconic theatre space by the river. The gardens will be untouched. Indeed they may be expanded.

There used to be a church here, hence the name, but it was torn down when the congregation disppeared as the city grew and this former residential area became a business and office area. It was surrounded by a graveyard. Things grow well here possibly because of the centuries of bone meal that have enriched the soil. The daffodils were stunning this afternoon.