Ottawa’s annual Tulip festival is in full swing with swathes of color everywhere. I’m eager to see the flowers – but I know that isn’t going to happen.

It isn’t just hat I am out of the city for much of the festival. It is that all the things that needed to get done before departure meant I couldn’t take a couple of hours to wander among the tulip beds.

I’ve only mild regrets though. There’s always next year. Though the way my schedule works these days, I’ll probably be traveling then too. I just realized that is what happened last year.

People come from all over the world to see the tulips, a gift from a grateful Netherlands to Ottawa for providing a refuge to the Royal Family during the Second World War. Queen Juliana of the Netherlands gave birth to Princess Margriet in the same hospital I was bon in, just down the hall from where I was born if I remember correctly. The Princess is a few years older than me though so I didn’t have a brush with royalty in my youth.

The only tulips I’ve seen this year are the ones in front of the Parliament Buildings. so at least I have one photo to share with you.