F is for Flower

So, obviously, Heather is the name of a flower and that could be why I've always loved having plants and flowers around me. Maybe, but I doubt it.

The thing is, at school I was obsessed with Enid Blyton's tales of boarding school and the ultra-cool lifestyle of all who went there. You never heard of anyone with my name (it didn't occur to me then that she was English so a Heather or a Morag or a Siobhan would never figure). Instead, what I most wanted was a nickname (the best being the male-sounding abbreviation of the female version of a boy's name - Bobby, Jo, Billie, Sammy). Not much you could do with Heather, which more usually was rhymed with bad weather.

No, I think the more likely reason for loving flowers came from my mother. Every summer was spent in the countryside (or "in the field" - the subject for a future post), surrounded by wild flowers. We would pick them (I guess now I would hesitate to do so) and press them between the pages of a magnificent hardback wild flower book (the edition pictured could be it, but I'll have to check to be sure). Back at home too, the garden was colourful for most of the year and there the vases in the house were always kept filled.

Throughout my travels, I have always fallen for the places with the prettiest flowers - we first went to Tinos in Greece in the springtime. By the end of our week there, we had bought a house. That is the most extreme reaction.

In terms of holiday destinations though, my greatest surprise was Colorado. We went in July and, used as we were to the Mediterranean, we had no idea the meadows would be quite so breathtaking. They revelled in the most dazzling array of colours I have ever seen. The colombine is the Colorado state flower and is in evidence everywhere, but there were so many species I couldn't name that I had to buy another wild flower book - when I return I will be prepared. 

Enough now. Flowers are fabulous...and if there are none in the garden, at least I have my photos (and those I have felted, of course).