For the Mother in all of Us

For my Mother

Blooms for May and Mothers (sasanqua camellia in my garden)

and the Mother in all of us on Mother’s Day, 2014.

The Cradle
 Berthe Morisot  (January 14, 1841 – March 2, 1895)

White sasanqua camellia   for the Mother in all of us

For a short history on Mother’s Day and the older celebration of Mothering Sunday click  here.

And click  here to read  the 1914 proclamation of Mother’s Day by Woodrow Wilson, and for the history of Mother’s Day in the US click here. Mother’s Day founder Anna Jarvis fought against its commercialisation and died penniless.   Her white flower of choice for Mother’s Day was the carnation.

© silkannthreades

It’s just one of those days……

It’s just one of those days of summer,

when blooms

Flowering leek

and beings

Bee with leek

and beasties

Best Beasties

Best Friends

entwine with sun and  sky,

Sunlight and shadow

Light and shade

Sky high

to weave a cloth

Finely clothed

so light and fine

Light and fine

Light

Fine

that you wish you could wear it forever,

close,

like the  sweet touch of earth to  skin.

Day of Summer

Close as Earth to Skin

© silkannthreades

Postal notes

In Christchurch, letter boxes are being ‘harvested’. Our Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) has given permission for a community group, the  Avon-Otakaro Network,  to gather  letter boxes from red-zoned residential properties where the houses have been demolished. The letter boxes, and the homes to which they belonged, had to be abandoned following the devastation of the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. The Avon-Otakaro Network, which has so far collected 200 letter boxes, plans to use them to create 10 sculptures to be placed by the lower Avon River. They will be reminders of  loved homes and communities that are no more. http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/9305950/Harvesting-red-zone-letterboxes-for-art

Just as letter boxes are changing their form, so, too, is our Postal Service. Yesterday came the not unexpected announcement that New Zealand Post  will reduce “its work force by up to 2000 staff as part of a strategy to reshape the business over the next five years.” (http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/business/9352413/NZ-Post-job-losses-restructure-revealed )  Part of that strategic plan includes a move to a 3 day postal delivery service, beginning in mid 2015.  Like any good organisation, it must continually renegotiate its terms of existence in order to survive and thrive. New Zealand Post has been doing its vital work, in one form or another, for at least  170 years and  I expect it can continue to serve for another century, if appropriate innovative strategies are implemented.

In the meantime, whilst the Postal Service and the letter boxes are  being sorted out and re-arranged, some of us are doing our best to help keep the current postal structures in good heart.

Here are my  bookmark  gifts ready to fly away, par avion, to distant shores.

Fly away my pretty ones

Can you guess which one is coming to a post box near you? One will find a home, in the US, and will soon be covered in  dog hair ; one will settle comfortably in London,  next to Danny, the teddy bear, and a cat called Thomas ; and the third will go to a dedicated reader of books, and my blog, and long time friend, who lives in  Auckland, New Zealand.

But real mail doesn’t only leave my home. It arrives as well. In my broken-down-earthquake-damaged-letter box, which no one would want to harvest, I found this…..midday yesterday…..

All pink and white and pretty

This pink and white parcel delight contains my first purchase from  Koru Knits’ Felt shop. (Felt is our New Zealand answer to Etsy)

I always love a parcel and the treats within. Here is my treat; beautiful ‘sapphire blue’ handwarmers, lovingly handmade by fellow blogger, Lynley.

Handmade by Lynley

Sapphire Blue Handwarmers

Of course, they won’t be needed right now, as we head in to summer, but I like to be prepared!

Included in my parcel was a lovely, and generous, bonus (because I was Lynley’s first Felt customer) ; a pink, white and blue striped apron, ( you can see a little of it underneath the handwarmers), which is perfectly perfect for me, in both colour and size.  How did she guess?

What Lynley didn’t guess is that I would put ‘pinny’ and handwarmers on, straight away, and prance around the kitchen taking photos of myself!

Which Hand

Looks Best ?

And, if it had been morning time, I would have pranced right out the door and taken my new garments for a walk to my letter box, just for the sheer fun of it. And, perhaps, even given a friendly wave to the postie, if he or she had been cycling by at that very moment.

© silkannthreades

It’s strange what comes out…..

My first peony of the season is blooming. In a few days’ time I expect to have a minimum of   two peony blooms , as I did on November 1st, last year. Dear Peony Plant, always so reliable, at least as far as seasonal timekeeping is concerned.

Welcome back Sweet Peony

My peony’s heritage can be traced back to my  great aunt’s   garden in Ashburton.  I was given the cutting/root from my great aunt’s peony  by her niece. I watched her take the cutting from  a plant that was covered in  beautiful white peonies. Yes, white!

I have had my “white” peony for nearly ten years now. It took a long time to establish itself but, in about its fifth year, it sent out its first tentative bloom. It was pale pink 🙂 And, each year since, the blooms have remained determinedly, and stubbornly, pink; indeed, each year, they seem to blush a slightly deeper shade of pink.

No matter the colour, pink or white, or any variation thereof, I love my peonies. Here is my collage that makes the most of today’s one precious bloom.

Making the most of one sweet peony

In 2011, ( the latest figures I could find ), New Zealand exported 800,000 peony flower stems. Most went to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan. 35% of the blooms went to the United States.  Peonies made up only 3% of New Zealand’s flower exports. Apparently,  orchids are our top floral export. These are heady figures.

Perhaps, there is a New Zealand peony near you, right now, in a bouquet or vase, or waiting for you to gently choose it from a display on a flower stall; to gently sense, within its silken honey-dewed petals,  the essence of our southern spring.  Will  you sense that our spring is strangely warm….28 degrees celsius today?

© silkannthreades