Lupins and Early Light

I never walk past a stand of lupins without thinking of a sketch in the thirty-seventh episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. A bumbling highwayman named Dennis Moore (played by John Cleese) steals lupins from the rich ("Your lupins or your life!") and tries to give them to the local peasantry. The peasants tire of lupins and start demanding other things like money, Titian paintings, Venetian silver and art glass.

This morning's lupins live in the hedgerow along a hydro corridor in the village. They are descendants of those that once lived in the garden of a a small brick bungalow owned by my friend Sadie. Her house was surrounded by fences and high hedges, and its enclosures were filled with fruit trees, old roses and heirloom perennials. Although she and her garden are long gone, Beau and I remember them every time we pass the lupin children on our morning walk.