We had planted a cluster of daffodils on the spaniel’s grave, but after a few days the weather battered them down.
Sadly, the little yellow flowers began to curl up and wither in the force of the wind and hail that was pelting the small wooded copse where we laid Cydney to rest.
I chose daffodils because her official name was Byrecoc Cinnamon Jonquil. I went to the farm shop and bought a large pot of the variety sometimes called narcissus, sometimes jonquil, a lovely old-fashioned name.
For two days they bloomed on the spot, and then they faltered. But on the fourth day when I visited, I realised, walking towards the place, that a most astonishing thing had happened. On an otherwise quite desolate corner of farmland, two trees next to her resting place had suddenly come into bloom.

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