Jump up and kiss me!

My mother tells me that when she was a child her father used to say, 'jump up and kiss me!' every time they passed pansies (Mum, I hope I have that right!). Anyway, MIL has pulled the fading petunias from their pots by the doors and replaced them with pansies and violas. Until now, I don't think I have ever appreciated pansies quite so much. I didn't realise that these small, unassuming plants had such glorious flowers. My favourites are dark indigo and purples, glossy and soft like velvet. It turns out that these colours also seem to be the hardest to photograph, and I am not clever enough with my camera to know why. Something about them seems to suck in all the light and hold it in those gorgeous petals rather than reflect it back, resulting in a pictures with a bit of a strange ephemeral quality to them. Maybe the pansies are shy and don't like to be photographed?

I had a hard enough time narrowing it down to a mere five pictures. These are, as I mentioned, in pots by the doors, and so every time you step in or out of the house their little faces nod up at you.

Incidentally, I have been reading a little about pansies, and found they have a very interesting etymology (including being called 'Jump Up and Kiss Me!'). The name 'Pansy' comes from the french word 'Pensee,' meaning thought and referring to the flower's appearance to a face. They are also commonly called 'Heart's Ease,' which is lovely, yes?