Books in Bloom: surprise bouquets

       If you wanted to create a floral bouquet to call attention to a book you enjoyed, which book comes to mind?  Dianthe cleverly chose two wedding bouquets from the book Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch by Sally Bedell Smith to share at Books in Bloom, a festive evening and weekend at the local library. This collaboration of the  Garden Club and the Friends of the Library presented floral arrangements alongside books to support library programs: free museum passes and Author and Music series. Below are the two bouquets that ended up at my house a week later (still in good shape) that I wanted to show you. The gardenias have passed (not the scent) and there is more movement in their construction than my photograph captured.

Sarah and Camilla's wedding bouquets reproduced by Dianthe Eisendrath 

        Almost everyone loves a wedding and on holding these, I felt like marching down the aisle again. On the left you see Sarah (Fergie) 's wedding bouquet and on the right, Camilla's. Central is the book's subject. Dianthe displayed the following text from the book to call people's attention to two festive occasions mentioned in the book and the Queen's attitude:

       Dianthe wrote, "Americans have little fondness or respect for Sarah Ferguson or Camilla Parker Bowles. When you read 'Elizabeth the Queen', her celebratory sense on each occasion will become more clear." 

       Near Sarah's bouquet Dianthe shared from the book:  "Elizabeth II was charmed by Sarah, who loved to stalk, shoot and fish at Balmoral (castle in Scotland) - all of which gave her an automatic edge over Diana." Fergie regularly rode with the Queen, and "felt favored and blessed...I was robust and jolly and not too highly strung." ..."She's very sharp and clever", said Princess Michael of Kent,"and she has made very great friends with the Queen."

       Under Camilla's wedding bouquet, Dianthe pulled from the book, "Everyone was in high spirits at the reception hosted by the Prince's (Charles) mother in the state apartments at the castle (Windsor)." The Queen gave a rousing toast "to a huge roar of approval", and kissed Camilla off on her honeymoon. "The Queen recognized her good qualities: humor, resilience, warmth, common sense, and above all devotion to Charles. Camilla enjoyed the field sports so important to the royal family and she embraced all their traditions. Through years of vilification, Camilla maintained a discreet silence, which also impressed the Queen."

        Families are always complicated and amusing. I am fortunate to live in a town of book, flower and music lovers among people who support library offerings. Now to smell those roses, gardenias, that Dianthe must have had fun putting together!

I took a photo of the table that came out in the newspaper yesterday so you could see more!

The original Citizen-Herald Wicked photo is by Joanna Kaselis Tzouvelis. I photographed my newspaper page to show you how Dianthe set up and the gorgeous gardenias filling out the bouquet.

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