My First Time to Do Flower Arrangements in the Church here in France

Hi, Daily Blog community! Sharing with you a day that happened yesterday. Something that I never do in my daily routine and I never did back in the Philippines.

As I always do my daily biking to school with Alexandre, the school director updated me on Alexandre’s progress. Later on, another woman, who just dropped off her grandkids at school, approached me and invited me to join them in the church. That is to do some flower arrangements for this Saturday’s mass in the evening. Good thing she can speak English and is very talkative.

I am happy to say that the people I met in school were very accommodating to me as I could not speak French very well. While I was talking to the school director, she admitted that she had trouble with English. The woman, who approached and invited me, was to the rescue. The school director encouraged me to go as well. The school is inviting children and parents to go to this Saturday’s evening mass.

I was glad to accept the invitation as I literally have no social life since I arrived here in 2019. I haven’t met any Filipinos in the countryside. My son’s start of school is the only way I can meet other people aside from family-friends.

The woman assured me that there was another woman who could speak good English so it wouldn’t be difficult for me to spend time with them. She told me to bring some flowers and a pair of scissors. I only brought my scissors but no flowers.

My husband and my daughter were in the hospital early morning for Elise’s scheduled surgery. He sent me some updates and photos of Elise which I cannot share right now. Elise is totally fine right now and is happy when she gets back home.

After school, I went back home to have some coffee and a little breakfast. I updated my husband about the invitation to the church. He had no idea what time exactly they get back home. His estimate was before noon. It was 9 AM so I told him I still had time to show up at the church and maybe could finish before noon. I hurriedly did my coffee and did the washing machine and dishes machine.

When I arrived inside the church, I regretted not bringing any hydrangeas or hortencias from my mother-in-law's garden. But it started to rain so I parked the bike inside the church. There, I met two other women, and later on, the woman who approached me before brought some flowers. I didn't get her name.

I introduced myself and got their names. Monique, the woman who approached me earlier who was originally from the south of France; Hazel, the English woman; and Emiliane, the Breton woman. We were a diverse group.

I realized I don't have any talent for Flower Arrangements. Haha! But I tried. Enough with the long introduction. :D

Photos after the Flower Arrangements

While doing the flower arrangements, we had some little conversations along the way but most of the time we were concentrating on the flowers. The photos you see, we just finished cleaning up and I got the chance to take photos.

Taking photos of the colored glass. I really liked taking photos of this every time I was inside a church.

You can see my e-bike which I parked inside. We finished cleaning up. On the floor, there were many leaves and flowers. The unused ones were already inside the trash bag.

I remember that I have a relative in the Philippines who is the official decorator of the church. Flowers in the Philippines are very expensive so she had to go to a Flower Market in Cebu City to beautify the church. She also decorates the place for the church wedding. She also decorated several flowers during my mom's wake at home and it was beautiful.

Here was my second attempt at flower arrangements which I did myself. The nice thing about here in France is that they have so many flowers around. I don't even know the names of the other flowers. Well, I was proud to do this. Hehe!

This is not my arrangement but I love the mix of purple, white, yellow, and pink hortencias/hydrangeas in one vase.

The flowers in the Pulpit. Wait, I am really interested in going up but it wasn't me who put the flowers there.

This side of the pulpit looks good because of the yellow flowers.

This is colorful with pink, red, and yellow flowers.

It was my first time to get inside the church. I showed Alexandre these photos and told him about my activity here yesterday morning. He wants to go to the church tomorrow.

My first attempt at flower arrangement with the help of Hazel. She added more flowers after I did the minimum.

To be honest, I enjoyed it. I would love to bring other flowers next time. I would love to decorate a vase with different flowers of Hydrangeas.

We finished decorating before 11 AM. Monique invited us for coffee, I would love to go but I declined politely as I needed to go back home and wait for my husband and Elise.

It was a productive morning and happy to meet people in the community.

All photos were taken using an iPad mini.

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