F is for Flowers

I've chosen flowers for my F word as they're something that a lot of us see everyday of our lives without even realising it or appreciating them.  Not just in nature but also in some unexpected places - we just have to open our eyes and look.  Flowers also have so many different meanings depending what context they are used in and they can provoke very strong emotions.

My first flower is a Louis Vuitton window display in one of the big department stores in London - very striking and colourful. I wonder how many Londoners rushed by without stopping to admire the beauty they were passing.

Flowers can also be used in food, or as  is so beautifully demonstrated below, to decorate a yummy cocktail.

I love seeing the flower arranging displays in country shows, as people are so creative and make such stunning works of art with flowers.  This was the winning entry at a show we went to in Kent.

Towns and villages around the world often use decorative floral beds to make the place look more appealing.  Our new home of Nairn has several lovely areas, but I particularly like this one featuring dolphins.

Florist shops always have a wonderful way of displaying their flowers to tempt people into buying them and there are so many reasons people buy bunches of flowers.  It may be as simple as I love you and wanted to spoil you, but it can also be 'I'm sorry, I know I was an idiot', or it may be a easy birthday gift, or to take to a graveyard and place on a loved ones grave.  It could be congratulations, happy anniversary, or a thank you to someone who has gone above and beyond - so many reasons in a collection of coloured petals.

I'm very lucky to have a wonderful husband that always buys me very special bouquets - the flowers below were for this years valentines day and I loved them.

Flowers are also a very important part of remembering those we have lost.  Do we leave flowers on graves so that other people know we care or do we think the deceased know we're leaving them there? The grave below is for an Australian that died in the second world war and is buried in Scotland - I love how flowers have been planted around the tombstone so that they are always there.

The flower that most people think of when it comes to war is the poppy - to read the story of the poppy on the website of the British Legion, click HERE.  There are over 35 million poppies made each year for remembrance day so that people can wear them as a mark of respect and they also get made into the wreaths that are used at the war memorials.  The wreaths below were actually placed at the ANZAC Day memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

Perhaps the most stunning and poignant use of poppies was the display at the Tower of London in 2014, which marked 100 years since the start of  World War 1.  When the last poppy was planted on remembrance day there were 888,246 poppies - one for every British military death in the first world war.

To finish on a more upbeat note, I couldn't do a blog post about flowers without mentioning a really happy way they are used, and that is at weddings.  Wedding bouquets, buttonholes, flowers for tables, and even throwing dried petals over the happy couple - flowers feature very heavily in the joining of two people in marriage.

I hope you've enjoyed this post on flowers, and until next time, be good, stay safe, and take time through the following week to see the flowers around you.

Pamela & Ken
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