Ixora Garlands

Yesterday I went location hunting for a video project I'm going to be doing. My quest led me to the back yard of a small blue wooden house in Surrey (an area on the way to Lopinot).

A little girl there (Celine) announced upon my arrival that she loves to make jewelry out of ixora flowers and proceeded to make me a rather large ring and a bracelet. I ended up having quite a fascinating little visit with these strangers ... Celine, her little sister Renelle (who was 2), her mother and their outspoken grandmother. We all sat outside where it was cool and breezy, under a large tree in the front yard - the mother sat on the steps near the roots of the tree, the children and I sat on the roots and the grandmother sat on a chair on the little pathway nearby. Celine strung her ixoras together and pounded purple Morning Glory with a small rock to make "ink" whilst her little sister Renelle copied everything she did, pounding ixoras, squeezing them between her chubby fingers and making fistfuls of ixoras and gravel which she proudly kept pushing into my camera lens. Apparently they spend their spare time making flower jewelry, 'cooking' flower soups or, according to their mother, "jes ripping up all meh plants!"
*
Elspeth