Back to work blues

Was today too much like hard work, with the return to work, school or college causing you to crawl out of bed at a snail's pace this morning, and long to go back to bed as soon as possible? Like a lot of people, I found the jolt back to my usual routine unwelcome and abrupt. My sister went back to her care home yesterday, and I always feel blue when she's out of London.

She's the blurry baby on the far left, and the tiny blur in a red coat on the right. It was raining on the day the gold-framed photo was taken.

Of course, it ended up raining today.

A Twitter observation on the blueness of this Monday got me to think about blue flowers. I'd already shared photos of bluebells this morning on Facebook and Twitter, as bluebells symbolise constancy (which I thought would be a comfort, given the unsettling return to work) as well as kindness and gratitude.

But more blue flowers wouldn't go amiss.

So here are some Monday blues. A lot of these are British flowers: bluebells, forget-me-nots, hyacinths, cornflowers, nigella, delphiniums, flax, lavender, muscari, sweet peas and scabious. And there are also roses, gentian, irises, and campanula. I've been a bit licentious about what counts as blue, but so are the people who name flower varieties! Blue flowers often have a fantastic scent as well, which is a lovely bonus. Happy Monday!

Bluebell Monday, Paddington, and Winnie the Pooh

Today was a long overdue good day. We had plenty of blue Mondays (and Tuesdays and Wednesdays...) over Christmas and New Year, with my autistic sister being very poorly and aggressive. She came back to London yesterday, and she is much chirpier. I took her to see the Paddington film, and it's the first time in years that she's sat through almost an entire film. Usually she wants to leave after half an hour. (The film is wonderful, by the way - really fun and funny, with a sweet message about diversity.)

We watched The Great British Garden Revival in the evening, and she was transfixed by the footage of bluebell woods. Blue used to be her favourite colour, and although she never asks to go anywhere, she does seem to enjoy being around nature. I often point at things for her to look at, but she doesn't always want to look. I also show her nicely scented flowers to smell, but she doesn't really sniff them. But I am hoping that a bluebell wood will surround her with beautiful blue flowers and a sweet scent, that she will notice and enjoy. So I'm planning to take her to one in the springtime.

I'm also hoping to take her to Ashdown Forest (Winnie the Pooh country) one day, although that will probably be more fun for me than her! I loved A. A. Milne's  stories as a child and even more as a teenager. As well as seeing the polar bears in Canada for my 30th birthday, I also saw the statue of Winnie the bear in Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg: the bear who was smuggled to Britain and who inspired Winnie the Pooh.

As other bluebell lovers chatted on Twitter after today's Garden Revival episode, the lovely Sara Willman of My Flower Patch sent me some bluebell photos she'd taken a few years ago at West Woods in Wiltshire, and I asked her if I could share four of them here. She agrees that it will hopefully be a wonderful sensory experience for my sister to visit a bluebell wood. We can all enjoy Sara's photos until the bluebells make their appearance in a few months!

The year in flowers

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

England vs. Spain

Today I have been enjoying one of my favourite spring flowers - the bluebell.

Here are my English bluebells, which I deliberately bought, next to some Spanish bluebells which have appeared all over people's gardens. I am not entirely sure if they are the Spanish or the English-Spanish hybrid, but they are bigger, upright, with thicker stems and huge leaves. They are more strongly scented than the delicate English ones, but maybe because there are more flowers on the spike. In the language of flowers, bluebell means constancy; if only there was such constancy when identifying bluebells in Britain! The Natural History Museum has helpfully put together some information to help people identify the bluebells they see. The museum is also collecting information from people who have logged their sightings.

I can see why florists prefer to use the stronger Spanish bluebells in their work, but I love the thin stems and drooping heads of English bluebells.

My question is: which bluebells did Winston pick for Julia in Nineteen Eighty-Four?!

Your Ma's a born lady

I had specific plans about which British flowers I would use for Mothering Sunday, but unfortunately, the local wholesaler had sold out of them at the start of this week (I guess it's a good sign - lots of people wanted to buy local!). The spring flowers I've grown haven't been prolific or tall enough to use in bouquets. So I had to come up with another plan.

My colour scheme was yellow, white, and pink or blue. I bought pink and blue campanulas, although the blue looked lilac. I chose acid-green bupleurum (which has all the zesty brightness of green euphorbia, but without the skin-irritating sap), and white lilacs for their lovely scent and their spring blooms. I also got yellow Guernsey freesias and French mimosa, which both have a sweet scent. There was lots of British foliage - variegated pittosporum, eucalyptus, magnolia, and philadelphus (mock orange blossom).

I used either pink or blue campanulas for each bouquet - most people didn't express any preference for one colour or the other. Known also as Canterbury bells, there is a wonderful entry on them in Anna Trenter's book, The Lore and Language of Flowers:

Canterbury bells “grew in great abundance in oak woods, and carpeted the Kentish countryside around Canterbury, hence its name. It was sacred to St Augustine who began the conversion of English to Christianity in the sixth century and was given the see of Canterbury by the newly converted King Ethelbert of Kent.”  Flower Fairies: The Lore and Language of Flowers by Anna Trenter.

Lilac represents the first emotions of love, and white lilac in particular symbolises youthful innocence, which is a lovely image of childhood. Freesias mean lasting friendship and sometimes when children grow up, that is what develops between parents and their children. Mimosa means sensitivity, bupleurum represents esteem, magnolia stands for memory, and the 'positive' meaning of mock orange is also memory.

People seemed to be going all-out this year - there were several orders for big bouquets, but not many for posies! The posies used more British flowers - forget-me-nots, narcissi, hellebores and pink bluebells. Forget-me-nots represent lasting love and, of course, a request not to be forgotten, narcissi have several meanings, including new beginnings and chivalry, hellebores mean wit and "relieve my anxiety", while bluebells symbolise constancy.

I'll finish with a few lines from The Railway Children, which is one of my favourite books about childhood. The author, Edith Nesbit, lived in Grove Park for a time. The book is set in beautiful countryside - I visited the Yorkshire locations of the 1970 film a few years ago. This is the walk up to Three Chimneys.

The children adore their kind mother who has to take them out of their home and into a strange new town, without their father. Flowers play a big part in the children's lives. Lilac, Canterbury bells, roses, wallflowers and blossom all get mentions, and the eldest daughter, Bobbie's birthday is celebrated with a floral crown and table decorations made of forget-me-nots.

This is when the children have presented the train station porter with gifts for his birthday, which they secretly collected from people in the town:

'"Little Clothes for Mrs Perks's children." Mother said, "I'll find some of Phyllis's things that she's grown out of if you're quite sure Mr Perks wouldn't be offended and think it's meant for charity. I'd like to do some little thing for him, because he's so kind to you. I can't do much because we're poor ourselves."'

Bobbie paused.

'That's all right,' said Perks, 'your Ma's a born lady. We'll keep the little frocks, and what-not, Nell.'

Each little pledge

Spring comes anew and brings each little pledge

That still as wont my childish heart deceives

John Clare

After spending a lot of time enjoying the warm sunshine at the weekend, I find myself with a lot of paperwork to catch up on now! So here's a post full of photos of the springtime.

I cut some Delft Blue and a Pink Pearl hyacinth, a Heart's Delight tulip, a lone crocus, a Penny's Pink hellebore, and quince blossom for some milk bottles. The hyacinths smell gorgeous, so it's worth cutting a few if you have any to bring indoors.

I confess I squealed when I saw that my forget-me-nots from Shannon's Garden Centre had begun to flower! I have been assured by the lovely #Britishflowers community on Twitter that squealing over flowers is normal.

The promise of this pink bluebell will keep me running back to the greenhouse every morning now.

Finally, I bought violets from Thompsons and planted some in hanging baskets. There's a dark beauty in the centre of one basket that puts paid to the idea of violets being shrinking; how bold is this stunning flower?

But these two remind me of the "shy little violets" in the 1951 Disney film of Alice in Wonderland.

I potted up the rest of the violets to bring indoors. They are such sweet flowers.