The dog

 Spring flowers ... tulips received as a gift ... daffodils growing under the clothes line.  The bright colours of spring are bursting out now and helping to cheer the spirit.
Not that Eliot is in the least impressed at having to pose!

 If he could have squeezed under the stair I think he would ... anything to avoid the camera that was once again pointing in his direction.  Having a bunch of tulips, however attractive, just didn't persuade him to pose.

 Things were easier in the garden ... maybe a bit of bribery was used!  A few treats scattered in the grass did the trick ... though he did look rather anxious when I lay down behind the clump of miniature daffodils.  In that position you're very likely to be licked!

It was only afterwards that I realized that all the heads are pointing south ... so their backs are to the camera!  At least the dog was looking in the right direction.

"Daffodils" (1804)

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

 William Wordsworth (1770-1850).