Snowdrops always remind me of my Mum's Mum whose favourite flowers they were, in fact this photo of them was taken in the Churchyard of the Derbyshire village where she was born in 1889. But even without the family connection, the sight of Snowdrops always gives me a lift, especially on a grey, wet day, when, even in the wind and the rain, they stand proud, perhaps bowed but never broken. Things of beauty in the purity of their white and green, they are first signs of the promise of spring, harbingers, in the midst of winter, of better things to come. The old name for Snowdrops was Candlemass bells, and they bloom of course around the feast of Candlemass on February 2nd. But it is not only the timing that fits. Just as their appearance heralds the promise of the distant spring, so in the Candlemass story the old man Simeon is able to see in the baby Jesus the promise of a better future. Sometimes, all we need to keep us going is a sign that, on the darkest, greyest, day there is hope.