My first memories are green memories. When did my fingers turn green? In the paradisiacal wilderness of the gardens at Villa Zuassa on the banks of Lago Maggiore? The April Gift of A Hundred and One Beautiful Flowers and How to Grow Them confirmed that at four my parents knew I was lost to green, as I walked down deep green avenues of camellias spotted with waxy carmine and white flowers. February flowers that seemed more in keeping with the hottest of midsummers.

Archaic green colours time. Passing centuries are evergreen. To mauve belongs a decade. Red explodes and consumes itself. Blue is infinite. Green clothes the earth in tranquillity, ebbs and flows with the seasons. In it is the hope of Resurrection. We feel green has more shades than any other colour, as the buds break the winter dun in the hedges. Hallucinatory sunny days.