“Kissing’s out of season when gorse is out of bloom” – so says the old English saying. Pull over! Stop the car! Let’s get comfortable…

For as I continue my back-and-forthing visiting family and friends through southern England most of the motorways and other major roads have gorse, Ulex europaeus, in flower alongside  – sometimes miles of it. And that’s the point: it’s very rarely without a flower, even in a proper winter. This winter, of course, has not been at all proper: the January sunbathers in Central Park made the news here in England.

Gorse, known as furze or whin in some areas, has always been plentiful and so had many traditional uses: in particular it was bundled and used to heat ovens in homes and bakeries and, after crushing in a cider mill to flatten the nasty spines, it was used as a winter feed for stock. Rarely grown in gardens, the double flowered form is no improvement. It is mentioned in a number of traditional folk songs and its reminder that a kiss and a cuddle is always to be enjoyed remains potent.