Flowers for Remembrance



Red poppy in Chantemerle, Haute Alpes, France



If you have read my very first post, you will know that red poppies are my favourite flower. When I was little, I would draw pages of them. I can't remember why I was so drawn to them then, but the love of red poppies remains. Of course, as I grew older I learned that they are the flower of remembrance for those who were lost in war.

Poppies commemorating the Centenary of the
Battle of the Somme, Westminster Abbey

However, I only recently found out that this is not a universal custom. During the ceremonies in France for the commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme, guests wore both the red poppy and the cornflower, which is the flower of remembrance for France. I think cornflowers are pretty close to poppies on my list of favourite flowers, and I have been able to grow them in both Canberra and Brisbane. Here is a final photo that I took, along with the others on this page, on our recent trip. Red poppies and cornflowers- lest we forget.

The Herb Garden at Atholl Palace Hotel,
Pitlochry, Scotland

An unforgettable visit: Anne Frank House

In July I achieved a life's wish and visited Anne Frank House and the Secret Annexe in Amsterdam. I first read Anne's diary in 1971 when it was a set English text, and I've been fascinated by her story ever since. When I read her diary, I was the same age as Anne when she began writing. Anne's life seemed so far removed from the comfortable middle class life my classmates and I lived in Brisbane. And of course, the diary ended suddenly, when Anne and her family were discovered and sent to the concentration camps.

In Amsterdam I discovered that Anne and her family boarded the train to Auschwitz at the same station we had arrived at. Amsterdam today is a frantic place, full of insane bicycle riders, 'coffee shops' that don't actually sell coffee, and a red light district where women offer themselves from behind windows that look out onto the street. It was hard to reconcile all of this with the Nazi occupation.

A painting I can't forget

Children of the Sea by Jozef Israels 1872

I had the good fortune to visit the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam recently, and I haven't been able to get this painting out of my head. When I first stood in front of it, I thought it looked like an idyllic day at the sea. But then I read the information about the painting, and understood what it represents.

These are the children of a fisherman, and if you look closely you will see that their clothes are tattered and their only toy is a boat, which symbolizes the difficult life at sea which is likely to be the future for the boys in the family. The eldest child, carrying the youngest, is intended to represent the boy who will carry the weight of his family on his shoulders as he grows up.

I love the way art and literature use symbolism, and I'm so glad that I read about the painting so that I could better understand it. Do you have a favourite painting? I'd love to know about it.

 

 

 

 

Friends for life

In 2012, we ticked one of the boxes on my husband, Barry's, bucket list. We watched a stage of the Tour de France. Or rather, we watched a fraction of a stage.

Barry had it all planned. We would park on the Col du Granier, at the peak of the climb, and we would get to see the riders go past slowly. We decided to do a reconnaissance on the day before. The only problem was, everyone else had the same idea and was already in place- lots of white vans with satellite dishes on top to receive the broadcast, and their owners reclining in their folding chairs on the verge of the road.


Our hearts sank, Barry's particularly. In an attempt to retrieve the situation, I suggested that we drive on and check out other parts of the route, and we struck gold at St Pierre d'Entremont.