FLOWER FRIDAY - THE PROMISE HAS ARRIVED!

As I was awake early - well, before 7 o’clock is early for me - I decided to pop down to Morrisons because I needed some vegetables to make soup.  It was still dark when I left home and it was snowing, so I wasn’t in there for long and was soon back home enjoying a fruit tea.

There was no contest for my Blip for today, it had to be my beautiful hyacinth, so I have decided to do it early in the day and then I can get on with my soup making and I might even do a bit more decluttering, although when we will be able to take anything into a charity shop is anyone’s guess!

When I first blipped this hyacinth, given to me by my sister, Karen, for my birthday, I said I didn’t know what colour it would be - if I had looked at the outer cardboard pot it came in, I would have seen the colour printed on there, which is “Delft Blue”.  Of course, I had heard of Delft Blue pottery, but didn’t know how the colour was made up, in fact, I didn’t know much about the pottery either, so I asked Mr. Google - and found out the following:

“Delft Blue is a type of pottery which is made in the Dutch city of, you guessed it, Delft. The production of Delft Blue started in the 17th century and it is still being made today. In the early days of Delft Blue, potters began by making the traditional Delftware using clay. This clay was then baked before a tin glaze was added. Figures where then painted onto the glazed clay using crushed oxides, and then it was fired again. It was in the second baking stage that the paintings got their Delft Blue colour.”

So now we are enjoying not only the beautiful colour of this gorgeous flower, but also the perfume and it reminds me of our wedding day, almost 53 years ago, when I had white hyacinth “pips” as they were called, in my bouquet - not for me a bouquet of artificial flowers,  which were very popular at the time - I wanted the real thing.  I also had white lilies, so I obviously wasn’t allergic to their perfume back then!  Mum would be pleased too, because the hyacinths are in the lovely pot that belonged to her.  So thank you again, Karen for the birthday gift that keeps on giving!

“If thou of fortune be bereft, 
     and in thy store there be but left
          two loaves, sell one, and with the dole
               buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.”
John Greenleaf Whittier

P.S.  Every day is a school day - something else I learned today:  
John Greenleaf Whittier’s middle name is thought to mean feuillevert, after his Huguenot forebears.  The Greenleafs were Huguenots who had fled France during religious persecution, going to England. They anglicised their family name of Feuillevert to Greenleaf.