A GI Bride Sixty Years On

So this week’s been all about romance leading up to Valentine’s Day on Friday - but for The Flower Bank our Valentine’s Day is this week when we start to receive all the unsold red roses. We held a Valentine’s Day workshop on Thursday night for 7 which was fabulous, the attendees left with 2 hand tied arrangements and a quite wonderful feeling of I’ve made this myself. Our next workshop is on the afternoon of Saturday 21st March and is entitled Kids do Mother’s Day. It’s something I did last year on the suggestion of my neighbour Tess who thought it shameful that the kids of single mothers wouldn’t necessarily be encouraged or even think of getting a gift for their mothers - unfortunately it’s an experience I know only too well. On Monday Vicky who I studied at Capel Manor with kindly donated all the materials from a wedding she’d decorated the previous day. It was lovely to see her. I was able to use the beautiful white amaryllis she’d donated straight away that afternoon with an activity of elderly residents with dementia at a care home. The conversation the flowers provoked was breathtaking with everyone recalling the flowers at their own weddings 60 years ago. One lady admitted that she’d been a GI bride and married in New York in 1946. Tomorrow we’re set to receive 15 - 16 vases full of donated gypsophila from an exhibitor at the national wedding show so who knows what conversations we’ll have this week!