LAST minute preparations are well underway for this weekend's popular flower festival in Cornwall. 

The Daffodil Festival hosted by Mawgan-in-Meneage Church will take place from Friday, February 17 until Sunday 19 and will be open daily from 10.30am until 4.30pm.

The festival is eagerly awaited by visitors who have been attending the biennial event, which first took place in 2007. 

The Rev Lisa Coupland will give an official blessing on Saturday at 10.30am and will close it on Sunday evening at 5pm with a Celtic evening service.

A spokesperson for the church said: “This is a wonderful community event to celebrate both the flower and the industry which has been such an essential part of the local economy for over a hundred years.

“Dozens of people are involved in putting the festival together, from arranging the displays to baking delicious cakes.

“There is a new sponsor supplying 10,000 yellow trumpet daffodils, Rowe Farming who delivered them as ‘green pencils’ the weekend before the festival to be nurtured into bloom.”

Light refreshments will be available, including pasties from Gear Farm on Friday and Saturday and homemade soup and a roll at lunchtime every day. There will also be hot drinks and cakes on sale all day every day.

The programme of events is almost finalised and will include live organ music and Cornish male voice singers. There will also be lots of information about the daffodil industry and art and crafts displays by local artists to enjoy.