Dear Reader:

I remember Grandmother Wilson welcoming visitors to the farm house in the spring with these very words “You are as welcome as the flowers in May”…(I always thought it was such a sweet sentiment.)

Today Grandmother would have to reserve that remark for probably March…”Welcome as the flowers in March.” No global warming worries when Grandmother was alive. Here it is the first few days of April and the azaleas are just about all gone…with the Azalea -Flowertown Festival  this weekend.

For the past few years I have wondered why the town council doesn’t just push the festival up to March (at the peak of the azalea season)…but someone told me they keep it going the same weekend of the National/International Cooper Bridge Run in Charleston so people can do that and then come over later that day or weekend to the Flowertown Festival. It is all about marketing. No matter…Summerville is always beautiful!

Actually this old southern welcome remark originates from the lyrics of an Irish ballad which was later re-written and changed by country performer Hank Snow and lyrics by Anne Young. *Lots of barbershop quartets sang it in the twenties through World War II.

In the Irish ballad a boy who left Cork for New York returns home and is welcomed by his mother with this refrain…in the American country music version…the “prodigal” country son roamer wanders back home to his now aged parents and is lovingly welcomed back home by his mother singing the same words.

Look at the pretty flowers in bloom in my yard and garden in the form of hanging baskets. I found one orange trumpet vine blooming in an azalea bush (upclose and personal/breathtaking) whereas all the other orange trumpet blooms are so high up the trees, they are hidden in the wisteria and practically impossible to find. (Lucked up on one combination a little lower on the branches.)

I remember my pastor telling me one time that ‘Grace’ can’t be repaid because of the very nature of its definition of God’s unconditional love. It can’t be earned…but only freely given and received.

I know that to be true but I sure hope God knows how much I appreciate Him leading me along my life path to the town of Summerville where I am so blessed…surrounded and blessed by family, friends and my own little “Garden of Eden” situated in a ‘flower town’ of unparalleled beauty.

So until tomorrow… (Etsy)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh