Narcissi bulb roots

Its pictures like this that make me long for summer, colour, intrigue, delight...

I long for summer, or even spring, that would be fine too.  How I wish I could be picking armfuls of flowers and wandering around barefoot, dirt between my toes.   Instead its February and its snowing, loathsome.  I was of the opinion until Sunday that January was the worst month of the year, but I have since changed my mind; February is foul.  Im filling my evenings with online shopping, not clothes or shoes thankfully, but seeds.  I think I am under the illusion Im going into production come the summer with the volume I keep buying.  But they haven't turned up yet, so lets talk roots.
Im not intending this to be an earth shattering post.  I was merely interested to see what the roots had got up to on my narcissi bulbs, especially as the narcissi were so firmly anchored in that pot.  Plus one of the main advantages as far as Im concerned of growing in pebbles rather than bulb fibre is that it is a lot cleaner, so I had to have a little dig around and see if that was true.

On pulling up the narcissus a whole knot ball of roots appeared, pebbles gently cradled in their pasty arms.  Even though I have now seen them I still don't understand how they held so firm.   A good shake and all those pebbles were freed.  However the clear downside of this method is that all the pebbles then needed gathering up, which was fine, and it was freezing outside, which wasn't.  Absolutely bone shatteringly cold.  The pebbles were a little grimey, but not covered in mould or anything.  Funnily enough I didn't choose to wash them right at that moment, instead stuffing them in a bag and losing them in the shed for a month or two until I can wash them in comfort.  So yes, this is a cleaner method than bulb fibre and if I can find a clear glass vase and nicer narcissi I will be repeating it again next year!
Hopefully I will be able to get out into the garden tomorrow and get some seed sown, or look at bulb noses peeping through or something!