Say it with Flowers. Whatever the message.

Welcome back to another blog hop, with #OpenBook. Here’s this week’s prompt.

Don’t forget to click the link to see what everyone else has to say on this week’s subject. It’s at the end of my post.

Victorians had a whole language around flowers. Do you have a favorite bloom? Do you know what it means? What does it mean to you?

I’m back, after a week away. And talk about serendipity to greet my return!

Let me explain, there will be more about my favourite flower shortly.

I’ve been creating a new amateur sleuth, a florist and wedding celebrant called Laetitia (Tish). I thought that combination gave me a lot of scope for her to be involved in, and investigate, crimes.

One of the possible stories I’ve been researching concerns someone who gets a strange bouquet and asks Tish the meaning of it.

Here’s what I’ve already written. See how it lines up with this week’s topic.

Weird?

I was minding my own business at the market, selling flowers, taking orders and chatting when I spotted someone acting suspiciously. There was a woman who kept walking past the stall. I thought she was going to approach me several times, but she kept turning away at the last minute.

It looked like she was plucking up the courage to come and talk to me, so I smiled at her every time we made eye contact.

Eventually, the crowds thinned, but she was still there. I called out to her.

“Can I help you?”

Looking nervously around, she came over.

“I don’t want to bother you,” she muttered quietly, “but I have a question. I’ve been sent a bouquet, it’s a really strange collection of flowers. I wondered if it had any meaning, you know, like Roses mean love, Lilies for funerals. That sort of thing.”

“What were the flowers?” I asked her. She told me and I had to try not to laugh. They were a familiar combination that I remembered from my days at college.

“All flowers have a meaning,” I said. “It was a Victorian thing, there was a book called The Language of Flowers. It was a way for people to leave subtle messages for each other. Back in the days when too much fraternisation between young or single people was frowned on.”

“I never knew that. What does this particular combination mean, then?” she asked.

This was a tricky bit. How did you tell her that a combination of geraniums (stupidity), foxglove (insincerity), meadowsweet (uselessness), yellow carnations (you have disappointed me), and orange lilies (hatred), meant F*** Off, without being impolite?

You’ll be pleased to hear that’s the end of my shameless plug. The book is still in the early stages; no doubt I’ll be telling you more about it in a later post.

I’ll now return to the subject of the Bloghop.

As for my favourite flower, it has to be the Rose. I love the fragrance, and there are some beautiful varieties.

Our garden is full of them, both the old-fashioned and the more modern types.

For me, they mean an English summer, Yvonne, my wife and Amy-Rose, my eldest daughter.

What do you think about this week’s subject?

Let me know by leaving me a comment.

While you’re here, please click the InLinkz link to check out what my fellow writers have to say about this week’s topic.

I’ll be back with another post on Thursday, see you then. Meanwhile, have a great week.

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