Saturday and Sunday - Cricket and Funerals and Flowers

After all of the usual stuff, the weekend was taken up watching some cricket and working on the funeral unit of my Floristry Course.


I had thought I may not like that aspect of the course, but actually I am really enjoying it and finding the work involved in the funeral tributes very therapeutic, relaxing or whatever word is appropriate. There are two styles to funeral work the loose style and the based style. Once you have grasped the style of the design and the technique to put it together then you just have to change the size or shape of tribute and the rest is concentration and hoping the design flows. I often feel that once you start a design, it just comes together, it all flows very naturally and then sometimes, less often thankfully it just doesn't and no matter where you place a flower or bit of foliage it just never seems right. The designs which flow are brilliant and fun and those which don't, well you just have to work that bit harder to get them right.



The loose styles are the single and double ended spray, open wreath, loose posy pad and cross which we have done so far and I particularly like the sprays and crosses, as someone said in class you get into the zone and just put the thing together. So this weekend I typed up a lot of my class notes and put together some information for the assignment I will have to complete on this unit later in the year. I am pleased with the progress made on this unit now and I suspect a lot of the techniques used will move onto the wedding unit too. At college we made the double ended spray and I brought it home and put it in the bay window, but a funeral double ended spray is the same design as a wedding top table arrangement.



I am looking forward to having a go at a chaplet in this unit, as I think they look particularly tasteful, although of course as a Florist, personal taste has to stay out of it. I still feel my work flows better if I like the design and colour scheme but I guess that is the same with any job or work, or anything really, you do the things you enjoy with more passion than the things you don't.



And just a word here about Stephen Gately, it was very sad to hear of his death as he seemed to be such a nice and talented guy. We never saw him on stage, but he seemed to have found a niche outside of his boy band persona and would have gone on to greater roles too, I suspect. Whilst never been an out and out Boyzone fan, I certainly enjoyed my fair share of their music I have found this so much more of a shock than MJ, perhaps because of his age. I also was appalled with the sections I read from the Jan Moir column and felt her comments were extremely unpleasant and to me went beyond anything which should have been written at that juncture. She is of course entitled to her opinion, although I don't share it, and there is a time and place for it, but that was not it. And the funeral was very moving as I was listening to it whilst working on some flower arrangements and the music was beautiful.







Ciao

Sue

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Reading challenge 9/16 - currently reading Lovers and Players by Jackie Collins
Jamie's Reading challenge 10/12 - currently reading Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by James Luceno
SLYMI - 1/52