Gorse in Full Flower on a Windy Headland

There's an old country saying that when the gorse is out of bloom, kissing's out of fashion. It's a joke with a point. Between the common gorse of spring and the smaller kinds that bloom later, some gorse is in flower in almost every month of the year. On a warm day the yellow flowers smell faintly of coconut. Here they cover a windy headland above a gray sea, with a stony path running between the spiny bushes toward the cliffs. It's a gorse jigsaw puzzle with yellow from one side to the other.