There is something about fresh flowers that make a place feel homely. As a child we always had a vase of fresh flowers on the table, the smell takes me right back to my mother’s kitchen.

Mother would take her time arranging the flowers, she would cut the stems at a 45° angle and remove any leaves from below the water level, then she would add a drop of bleach and a teaspoon of sugar to the water. She was always proud of her ability to keep her flowers fresh and healthy for days.

We come together to do a spot of flower arranging often here, it’s a lovely way to spend a morning, lots of chatter and giggles, plenty of tea and cake. We don’t rush we just enjoy the process, and the results are always beautiful, even if we do say so ourselves.

This week is Halloween and we have been enjoying lots of Halloween themed activities, we’ve already spent time making decorations to adorn the lounge and taken part in spooky quizzes. It’s been a lot of fun.

This week we took our flower arranging up a level by, not only preparing and arranging the flowers but by creating our own vases from hollowed out pumpkins. It’s been a very long time since I hollowed out a pumpkin, I’d forgotten how messy they are. 

We had a great time creating our masterpieces, the flowers looked beautiful set against the orange pumpkins. We placed our arrangements around the home, and they look stunning, we were all very proud of them. Before retiring to lunch we cleaned up the pumpkin seeds and left them to dry, ready to plant next year.

We have lots planned over the next few days including a party to celebrate this spookiest of occasions. We are very excited to see what the team have lined up for us, they never cease to amaze us and I’m sure this time will be no different.