Tuesday, June 24, 2008



Rebecca has gone to Toronto with her other grandmother for nine days. This means that when we open our garden to the Vancouver Rose Society this Sunday she will not be around to hostess and identify the roses to the visitors. We will miss her.

But there is a positive side to this. We are going to have Lauren with us on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. She is going to have a couple of sleepovers. She will have no competition. On Sunday she will wear her flowered dress and perhaps ID a few roses. It's not important. What is important and has become an exquisite pleasure is to be able to discover the unfurling of her child's personality. Rosemary and I can almost see it, very much like in that pioneering 1953 Disney film The Living Desert where flowers opened like magic.

For about 4 years of her 5 years Lauren has been standoffish. Suddenly she likes to snuggle and show affection. I lap it up. Rosemary and I will miss Rebecca but we will enjoy every moment we have with Lauren.

Here you see Lauren (last Friday) at Pacific Shores Resort & Spa in Parksville with a specimen of Meconopsis betonicifolia, otherwise known as the Himalayan poppy.