As I sit here, eating my muesli and gazing at our hyacinth (a bulbous herb formerly placed in the lily family Liliaceae but now regarded as the type genus of the separate family Hyacinthaceae), I wonder how on Earth it has managed to produce so much matter in the space of just 5 days.

When we bought it last Saturday (whilst attempting to find the Ecclesall Road Blockbuster branch, which succeeded in elluding us), it was but a bulb with a wee little green bit sticking out the top. Now looking at it in all its grand erectness! It is so large it can no longer support it’s own weight! How can it possibly produce all that green / pink matter from next-to-nothing?

The bulb hasn’t shrunk.
The soil level hasn’t gone down.
Ok, so it has drunk quite a bit (we’re talking water here, not alcohol), but are you telling me that that bulb has the power to turn water into a flower? (No offence Jesus, but I’m afraid that beats your water-to-wine trick; I mean, well, wine resembles water pretty closely apart from the colour, but a hyacinth flower? You couldn’t exactly use that to wash your car windscreen). (not that you’d be using wine to do that either, unless you live in Chelsea, maybe.)

Hmm, a question to ponder over on my way to school.