It’s tulip time and the bulbs are blooming in full force in Holland Zuid. So Padma and I set out to cure our spring fever and travelled to the land of tulips over the weekend. Our destination was Keukenhof Garden, a 32-hectare garden dedicated to all bulby things growing in spring.

We first drove around on arrival and walked amongst the farmers’ fields and found we arrived at a perfect transition time – the early blooming daffodils and hyacinths were still in full bloom and shared the colourful landscape with the just-beggining-to-bloom tulips.

The colours in some farmer’s fields were dazzling. Some of the reds and oranges of the tulips were so brilliant they hurt my eyes. In fact, those colours were in some spectrum which my digital camera simply couldn’t register.

On Sunday, we joined thousands others and visited the Keukenhof Garden. It was one of those jaw-dropping experiences where you are just left amazed by the beauty of nature … and the creative abilities of breeders and gardeners.

And every single person of the several thousand who were there just had to record that beauty on some kind of camera device. Padma and I enjoyed watching people pose with the flowers or adjust themselves for selfies.

At first, I was courteous and if I saw someone taking a photo I would patiently wait. By the end of the day, I’d just say, ‘Bugger it’ and walked through their photo. I’m sure a part of my head appears in countless photos. I figured if I wrote a book ‘Posing with Flowers’ and sold it at the entrance it would be an instant best seller.

And no. There were not more cameras than tulips. With 7 million bulbs blooming this spring, I think the flowers were a clear winner.