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My Grandad takes a lot of pictures. Like. A lot of pictures.

And they’re mostly of flowers.

Over the years the old man has accumulated thousands of negatives, prints, slides and video footage of interesting flora from China to Australia to America to Europe and beyond.

In our family we’ve always laughed about Grandad’s floral obsession. He likes gardening, we say. He likes pretty green things. His favourite colour is green!

Recently my brother brought to attention an increasingly true and uncomfortable fact: I too take a lot of flower pictures.

I’m not going to lie, flowers are easy to snap. They don’t talk, pull faces, stick their hands in front of my lens or accuse me of wanting to publish ugly images of them on the internet.

But you know… I also kind of like flowers. They’re nice.

Unlike Grandad I can’t grow anything though, my cacti are dying in droves, the basil has been eaten by lurid lime coloured grubs and the coriander has all turned to seed.

But maybe it’s all just a matter of time and soon my thumb will turn green as I slowly morph into the image of older generations.

I do hope, however, to refrain from forcing family members to endure hours of super-8 footage showing flowering shrubs in Hong Kong at all points in my near and distant future.