Any lover of bluebells will tell you that it’s been a vintage year for the little fellows.

I have no idea whether this is due to the warm wet winter, the late spring or because the year ends in 14. Something certainly has tempted them out in abundance.

As a result, our annual pilgrimage to find them has turned into groundhog day.

My first effort, in mid-April, was not bathed in glory. A brisk climb out of Church Stretton turned out to be premature by about a fortnight. The bluebells had not yet woken up, or only a few early risers had. These turned out to be green-and-brown remembered hills.

Two spectacular shows in the following weeks amply compensated for a good walk wasted, as Mark Twain said of golf.

The gardens at Kiftsgate in the Cotswolds are the connoisseur’s alternative to the crowds at Hidcote next door. I hasten to add that I’m no such connoisseur – I now know which way up plants grow – but the person I share the car with certainly is.

Where Kiftsgate topples down from its high perch to the plain below is occupied by woods. And those woods are occupied by bluebells. We have seen them before, but never as breath-taking as they were at the end of April 2014.

And if that was not enough blues to fill a stand at St Andrew’s, Hodnet Hall gardens in Shropshire proffered an almighty spread of them too.

And with that, we could perhaps bid bluebells farewell for another year, and shake hands with summer.

But there was to be a blue coda to the season. I happened to take a walk through Key Hill cemetery last Friday, and there they were again. Such is the permanent darkness in this neck of the Jewellery Quarter that Hyacinthoides non-scripta (I had to look this up) do not emerge till later.

Indeed, as a regular visitor to this historic gem, I’ve never seen bluebells here before, or not enough to notice anyway.

So, if you don’t have a car to whisk you off to Hodnet, or you cannot afford a ticket to Chelsea, then a trip down to Key Hill affords a gentler floral pleasure for nothing.

* Dr Chris Upton has the blues at Newman University Birmingham