Tag Archives: flowers

Violets⤴

Violets flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Violets always remind me of my mother in law Morag. They used to grow all over her garden in Bearsden and her gardener would weed them out. Morag used to save clumps of them from his grasp and give them to me to plant in our garden. I don’t know if the ones we have in our garden nowadays come from those plants or not, but whenever I see them I think of her. They grow in cracks and crevices – hard to notice, yet beautiful when I bend down to look close. I rarely weed them out because they are so pretty.

Violets flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

As I sat down to write this post I started to think about other ways that Morag reminds me of a violet. The woman I have known for over 20 years is a very quiet person, quite unassuming – but firm in her opinions – tenacious. A shrinking violet? Maybe, but one should never underestimate the power of quiet faith.

Violets flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Honesty⤴

from NomadWarMachine

I’ve been thinking about mum a lot this weekend – maybe because it was Mothering Sunday yesterday – although as my mother’s daughter I know better than to call it Mother’s Day and be confused about what the day was meant to be about. I might not be religious, but thanks to my pedantic parents I will never confuse a religious festival with a Hallmark Holiday. However, I realised over the weekend that I don’t know what church I was baptised in, because we moved a few times before I was old enough to know where I lived. And now, of course, it’s too late to find out because I can’t ask mum any more, even if I wanted to.

But as I was pottering around the garden, and thinking how much it needs tidied up now spring is finally here, I noticed that the honesty was starting to flower.

Honesty flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

My granny, her mum, always had honesty growing in her garden, and the plants in my garden are grown from plants that were once in her flower beds, then in mum’s. I love them – both for reminding me of my mum, and my granny, and because when the two shades are together they make up the colours of the Suffragettes.

Honesty flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

As time passes, and I start to remember the parts of mum I loved rather than the dotty old lady she turned into, sometimes I think I miss her more, and not less. I’m not feeling maudlin though, as I write this, just noticing the many tones of love that grief has.

Twisting the Kaleidoscope⤴

from NomadWarMachine

Today’s Daily Create asks us to

Imagine you find a kaleidoscope. You put it up to your eye, and point it to the sky. You twist it into the light.

What do you see?

Use either story or poem or words or image or art to bring us into the colorful world of your tumbling tube.

I knew I wanted to use a flower to create an image, so I found this one of an iris I took some years ago

sybil flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Cropped it to a square and then uploaded it to a Kaleidoscope maker to create this image.

Kaleidoscope iris flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Then I saw Kevin’s create, and nipped over to Lunapic to see what my image would look like as a gif. Here’s two – the first from the kaleidoscope image and the second from the original.

Silent Sunday⤴

from NomadWarMachine

53/365 Cherry Blossom flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Ducks and Fuchsias⤴

from NomadWarMachine

I don’t believe in God, the afterlife, or supernatural forces. I do believe in coincidence, in seeing patterns in nature and finding meaning when you look for it.

Mum loved ducks – there are ducks throughout her house. Pictures of ducks, plastic ducks, wooden ducks. Every time I see a duck I think of mum.

Mum died on Thursday morning. On Friday afternoon, on the way back from saying goodbye, we stopped as usual at Tebay Service Station, bought coffee and cake and sat in the café to admire the view. As we sat and looked over the pond I thought of mum with more than one tear in my eye.

“Ducks at Tebay” flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license.

Back at home on Saturday I shuffled the pages of my daily calendar to find the page for the day – and stopped with a smile. What a lovely picture for my weekend.

“Ducks on a Riverbank” flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

And then yesterday morning, as I was pottering around the garden I noticed that we had a fuchsia in bloom – a present from mum soon after we moved into this house 12 years ago, and the first time I’ve seen it flower.