Violets

When I was a little girl we lived in a hamlet of 12 houses, plus a pub and a garage right beside a busy main road.......then it was the A45, now it's the A14 (and  thankfully for the people who live there it's been by-passed).

Right beside our house was a lane that once had been used for farm vehicles to get to the fields behind the houses although by the time I was growing up the lane was too narrow, with high banks and not wide enough for new tractors. We used the lane as a footpath to the fields and woods and on each bank of the lane every  spring would be lots of violets. And we picked them......... Such tiny little flowers, they would be taken home and popped in an egg cup...... there was no such thing as wild flower protection and no one had any idea that the next 40 years of modern farming would wipe out so many species.

Violets are pretty hardy and spread easily so they didn't completely disappear from the countryside but maybe not often seen on the edges of farm fields.

However, we've got plenty here in the grass all around the garden both purple and white.

The camera makes them look much more blue than they are in real life

Looking in one of my (many) favourite books

I found this page about Violets including how to crystallize them to use for decorating  cakes

And in another little book "Discovering the Folklore of Plants" by Margaret Baker, I read that "The colour and drooping head made the violet the symbol of death and ill-luck". 

 To dream of violets meant an improvement in fortunes, can't say I've ever dreamed about violets........maybe tonight.

Back Tomorrow

Sue