Yesterday my beloved grandmother would have turned 110 years old. I brought her flowers from my garden. Her favourites were marguerites and cornflowers, and poppies among them. Only cornflowers are alive now that the marguerites and the poppies are gone. Those where the flowers she met in the fields as a young girl. And I am sure they were among the first flowers she ever layed her eyes upon.
She was a hard working woman – never lazy, up early and in bed late. She and my grandfather had an extensive orchard, growing currants (more than 200 bushes), but also plum trees, apple trees, pear trees, cherries. And potatoes, carrots, strawberries, raspberries, beans and sugar peas too. And rabbits. And flowers. Children and grandchildren all helped with the summer and autumn harvest.
I know that is where my love for the land and its fruits come. I know that is the reason why I love green, to see things grow and develop into the wonders they were meant to be.
I used to love growing people as well – young people developing the wings needed to fly free into the world.
When I think about Time, how much has passed and what might be left, I feel a bit sad in the midst of happy memories. But that is Life. As the Bible says, there is a time for everything.
Leya 
I too loved this post Ann-Christine .. delightful, with such wonderful memories from yesteryear. Thank you for sharing these with us ❤️
♥ Thank you for reading, and letting me know, Julie.
Such a special tribute to your grandmother. Even though some of our family elders are no longer with us, I think we grow closer to them as the years go by and we sometimes come to love them more than we ever did as children.
True. ♥
Dear Ann-Christine,
happy grandmother’s birthday.
We especially like your last picture. It immediately reminded us on the Swedish colours.
Thanks for sharing
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thank you – my grandmother was like a mother to me. ♥
Happy Birthday to your grandma, Ann-Christine. This is a lovely remembrance of her and her favorite flowers.
She was like a mother to me, so …this day is a special day every year.
>3
OOPS! ❤
A lovely tribute to your grandmother
Thank you – she was a lovely person indeed.
Nice reflections and a nice tribute to your grandmother.
She will always live in your heart.
Thank you, she will!
A beautiful tribute to your grandmother and her legacy 🙂
♥
I love this post so much. The words and photos that mean so much. I love the hedgehog, so sweet. Those tomatoes look delicious as well. Is that all of your tribe gathered around the statue? Wonderful memories of life ❤❤
Thank you, Brian – the people around Don Quijote is my loveliest class ever. for several years we used to take the last year students to Madrid for a week. These guys and I still are in contact – several of them on fb.
That’s wonderful Ann-Christine 🙂
In your case, the life is especially beautiful. Happy growing!
♥ Stay happy, Manja! ♥
Beautiful words and beautiful photos. And a sweet tribute to your grandmother. I have been feeling a bit melancholy recently, thinking about all of the time that has gone by and where we are in life (my husband just turned 70, my next birthday will be 59…). Looking back at life it is amazing what we’ve all experienced. We need to remember to focus on all the good, and appreciate fond memories 😊🤗
I can only agree – we have to be grateful for everything we have experienced – and that we have come so far. My husband just turned 70, and I am six years younger. So many memories, and some friends who never reached the age of 30… So – grateful is the word.
Wonderful memories of your beloved Grandmother.
♥
Not only a collection of beautiful images but your beautiful and thoughtful words were not only a tribute to your grandparents but also worth pondering. Very well done, Ann-Christine!
I am glad you found it interesting, Frank, and I am happy to have experienced those times.
What a lovely tribute to a beloved grandmother and illustrated with such gorgeous photographs as well. Thank you for sharing your memories. I think most of us of a certain age remember hard-working grandparents who managed to cope with their own live-at-home children as well as the grandchildren, and without washing-machines and modern helps: in my own grandmother’s case she still had to fetch the water from the well daily as she lived on a farm in the countryside where things like electricity and modern plumbing hadn’t reached. To me, as a child, it was sheer paradise.
Thank you for sharing memories, Mari! My grandmother had an outdoor loo and washed everything in a giant copper barrel, which she had to put logs on fire under it…I think we are rich to have experienced this.
Beautiful photos reminding me of my childhood . . . being a city baby back in the Baltics U would always ask for the car yo be stopped so I could clamber into roadside fields and pick poppies and cornflowers together, then sit in the car holding them in my little hand believing myself to be the luckiest little girl in the world . . . so pretty !!! Your flower photos today really touch my heart . . .
I am glad to have touched your heart, Eha – hopefully in a good way! Picking flowers was a joy already then for a little girl.
A lovely sentimental post Ann-Christine. I was thinking how old my mother would have been this year – 102 so not so much younger than your grandmother! Your photos are a wonderful tribute and the hedgehog is a winner for me.
Wow, so close! Then your grandparents must have been born in the 19th century?
I love that hedgehog too!
Yes, they were. 1880s
Wonderful memories and thoughts, A-C. I think all of our grandparents were likely to be very hard workers. I know mine were, as were/are my parents. The hedgehog is very cute and the shot of the produce makes me drool. 🙂
Yes, our parents and grandparents had to work harder than our own generation and the next. They also had more stamina.
So true. A lovely post.
Thank you so much, glad you liked it.