Flower/Flour #SOCS #StreamofConsciousnessSaturday

I had a friendly squabble with someone about flowers recently. I mentioned that I liked the lavender and hydrangeas in a mutual neighbour’s front garden. “Useless filler flowers, they don’t do anything” he scoffed. 

Do anything? What do flowers need to do, exactly? Judging by the number of bees I’ve had to skirt round this summer whilst walking past said neighbour’s garden, I think lavender in particular does a pretty good job at keeping the honey-makers in nectar. As for hydrangeas… well I guess they are just a prim decorative front garden filler. But I kind of like them. There was one outside my Mum’s front door – a huge sprawling blue thing that filled half the flower bed – and now when I see them in front gardens, they’re a reminder of a path I walked up a million times but never will again, the feeling of an old key in a once-familiar lock which I’ve turned for the last time. Hydrangeas, to me, say ‘welcome home’, ‘kick your shoes off in the hall’ and ‘have a cuppa’. And that’s about as much as you can expect from a flower. Suburban and prim they may be, but as soon as things like wifi and redecoration have been sorted, you can bet your boots I’ll be planting a great big blue hydrangea right next to my new front door.

As for flour… that’s another sign of home. Having an open bag of flour in the kitchen cupboard means that we’re cooking proper comfort food, pasta in cheese sauce, home made pizza bases or soda bread to dunk in soup. Kneading dough, getting the kids rolling pastry and cutting out shapes for the mince pies at Christmas – well, that’s what it’s all about. Despite the god awful mess. We must have swept so much flour off the floor and kitchen counters in various places we’ve lived over the years. But it makes it feel like home.

Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday hosted by Linda G. Hill. This week’s prompt was flower/flour. If you’d like to take part the rules, borrowed from Linda’s site, are as follows:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

#SoCS #StreamofConsciousness

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