<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/secret-admirers/”>Secret Admirers</a>

The WordPress daily challenge:

You return home to discover a huge flower bouquet waiting for you, no card attached. Who is it from — and why did they send it to you?

I love flowers. I can’t imagine not having flowers to look at. I often take photographs of plants and flowers I find particularly pleasing. They satisfy a part of me I can’t describe. I don’t know whether this kind of pleasure has a name of its own but, for me, it’s part of a feeling of connectedness, as if the plants can feel me admiring them and are even more beautiful because of that.

When I take time out to paint or draw, it’s always flowers that come to mind first.

Even weeds have a beauty of their own.

A secret admirer would know all my favourites. Someone who really wanted to reach me would know I have favourite colour combinations.

So fresh and clean: blue and white together. In fact, I have a thing about blue flowers. They resonate with me like no others. Catch them at twilight and their colour glows in the half-light with a fleeting intensity. It’s a bitter sweet pleasure: it passes so quickly. You have to be out there and specifically look for it.

Put me in a bluebell wood in April and I’m in heaven. Not only does the colour get to me, there’s the perfume as well – ah, sensory paradise.

Here’s a selection of flower pictures I’ve been moved to take:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seems I like a bit of pink, too, huh? My secret admirer would have this sussed. Well, of course he would; he has made a point of finding out these things.

The red rose is supposed to be symbolic of love. When I lived in France they were used as an early warning system protecting surrounding grape vines. At the first sign of disease on the roses wine growers would know how to treat the vines.

But, listen, here’s a secret. I have problems with red flowers. I never know where is the best place to plant them. To my thinking they can take over the whole garden with their showiness. They draw the eye and steal away attention from other more deserving beauties.

My ideal garden will be full of flowers but they will share the space with friendly companionship. They will be gentle and welcoming. There will be plenty of green also to act as a foil and add depth to the overall effect.

So who is my secret admirer?

A man so kind and thoughtful he has read this post and found a way to put a bouquet together that will both surprise me and fill me with admiration for the depth of his caring.

Why has he given it to me?

Because he loves me, silly!

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