mai flower1st May – My children desperately wanting to ‘catch’ May woke up early today begging me to come with them to collect flowers and make a wreath for our front door.

Not having had much time over the years to actually go and collect flowers myself, I thought today was a great opportunity. My daughter told me that the first flower that has to be picked is what I would call a purple thistle! In Greece they call it the ‘mai’ flower. It really is prickly and you have to be especially careful when picking it.

Walking over to Avlaki, we searched for the purple thistle. My daughter energetically scrambled over a wall finally spotting some and carefully cut one (with the huge pair of scissors that I had taken with me). picking wild flowersOnce that was done, my children and I walked around the hillside and gathered all of the pretty flowers that we could find. My son even thought the weeds were attractive!

Coming back home, I then found a strong piece of wire and bent it securely to make a circle shape. I thought, how am I going to tie all these flowers on? Thankfully having done it many times with her godmother, my daughter showed me how. So laying all the wild flowers out on the table, carefully selecting and binding them on with a continuous string, we managed to make our very own wreath. Some people also bind a garlic on.

making a wreathIt isn’t the best wreath that I’ve seen but just being involved with the cultural activity of the 1st May and good will that it is supposed to bring into your home or shop, I felt really chuffed with it!

To see some photos of wreaths made in the neighbourhood, please see the 1st May photo gallery