It is not always about the roses..but sometimes it is..

 Alright, the roses.

Hubby likes to groan anytime I mention them now.  You see, since December 20th you could be forgiven for thinking it is ALL about the roses.

I can't explain it, but on the morning of the 21st, when we pulled into that driveway to see what was left of our home, I fully expected the roses to be gone.. and they weren't..and I found myself exhaling.

It was almost as though, if those roses could survive, and continue to live there, then so could I.

Most of those roses had come back to me, from our Nairne house, where they were planted as housewarming gifts, or new baby gifts, or carefully chosen as bare rooted roses to match and replicate the roses in my wedding bouquet.  In a strange way, those roses were a symbol of our life together, and they endured, so we could too.

I know that is why I was irrationally cross when the army cut hedge branches and piled them on top of them in the clean-up, and why I recently lost the plot when the builders destroyed the two that had come back from total annihilation up by the house.

It is also why I was deliriously happy when my dear friend Julie helped me create a rose garden earlier in the year, and when, after seeing that the two by the house were destroyed, I came home to find that Kirsty and Narelle had been to the nursery and replaced the pink and the yellow rose that were smashed.

Now that Spring has really sprung, my roses have come into their own.  I am once again able to pick big bunches for friends, and my house has roses in every corner.

Maddie has taken a liking to the Graham Thomas and has them in a bud vase in her room.  The red climbing Sympathie has become a little corner of festive cheer with a Christmas candle.

The roses, they just keep making me happy.  They remind me that I can be resilient, and grow through adversity.  They remind me that you can be prickly and beautiful at the same time.

I take delight in the new ones as they flower for the first time. I take delight in the old ones as my favourites just bloom and bloom again.  I take delight in my friend's faces when I say "these are for you"

So it is not all about the roses, but sometimes, it is about finding the simple joys among the mundane or indifferent.

May you always have roses in your life,

May they be a reminder to bloom where you are planted.

Keep smiling,

Nell