A posy 'du Muguet.'

One of the many traditions still celebrated in France, on the 1st. May is to give someone a sprig of Lilly of the Valley. This tradition was started in 1561 by King Charles 1X. he decided to offer all the ladies of the court a sprig of Muguet. 'Apporter du bonheur'  (to bring happiness ) to the person you give it to. What a lovely tradition.
My 1st sprig of Muguet was given to me by my old friend Leonard. Sadly his wife had died shortly before we arrived to live in the village. I only wish I could have met her we would have had a lot to share.  I was told she had always loved flowers and had planted them here & there around the village, any where she thought needed brightening up. The village was known by everyone as 'Le Village Fleuris' This was one of the reasons we were attracted to it. We had been searching for some time with an 'Immobilier' for a house to use as a holiday home, at that time not realising how soon it would become our home! On the last day before we were due to return to England he showed us a cottage style house with a barn bigger than the house and much more land than we could ever use. As soon as we entered the village I fell in love with it,  there were flowers everywhere. Which 22 yrs ago at that time was not the No.1 priority. Most of the land around the houses in the village were full of rows of vegetables & fruit trees. Later I did ask an old lady in my poor French, along with sign language why she didn't have any flowers and her reply was, 'if you can't eat it, why grow it'. Yes there was the odd pot of Geraniums at the front door, but rare to see the whole village planted with flowers.
I was in my element & over the time I introduced hanging baskets and a vast variety of flowers they had  never seen before, which I mixed together. I was told by one of the villagers 'that's not how you do it, each type of flower must have it's own pot'. However I plodded along doing my own thing, putting up the odd hanging basket, & filling any old enamel bucket or basket I'd found amongst all the debris which had been left in the barn. Outside was beginning to look quite colourful, even though we were all still sleeping in the one room, while the rest of the house was under renovation. 
One day at the beginning of July I looked out of the window & saw several people wandering around the area at the front of the house, at that time I could hardly call it a terrace; each with a clip board and pencil all taking particular interest in the hanging baskets, which were full of trailing plants, looking OK; but not to my usual standard, however it was the best I was able achieve with the choice I could find in the area. Thankfully I was able to understand more French than I could speak, so I gathered they were judging my floral efforts. I had no idea they were the local commune floral committee !  judging for a competition I had not entered. I was told, 'it didn't matter, they would enter my name for me.' How simple can things be, it could only happen in France. So that was the beginning of the yearly floral competition for me. Never realising how competitive the rest of the villagers would become. I'll continue that story some other time.

My first petite bouquet of 'Muguet' will always bring back happy memories of my time spent in 'Le Village Fleuris'

                                

I hope my posy 'apporte du bonheur'

 will bring happiness to all my readers.