I joined the U3A years ago when I was in my 60’s at the behest of a friend who wanted someone to go with her to keep fit classes. I agreed to go on the understanding that I couldn’t go every week because we were doing a lot of world travelling at the time. Unlike learning a language there was no home-work and it didn’t matter if you missed a session. We did this for years until I was hit by the dreaded Arthritis and it all became too painful. When my husband reached 75 he decided to give up his business and we stopped travelling giving me more time to pursue my hobbies. I looked through the 100 classes that the U3A in our area offered and decided to try flower arranging.

I was hooked . Yes it’s the sort of thing that ladies of a certain age do. Flowers are beautiful, to start with and delicate. For many years if I was given a bunch of flowers I just stuck them in a vase and didn’t appreciate their full beauty. I now go once a fortnight to my class in the afternoon and lose myself making a table centre for Valentines Day, a Christmas wreath for the door or a basket of roses for a sick friend. Lately I made an arrangement of lilies around a candle for a friend who had lost her son . I hoped that the flowers could say what I couldn’t put into words.

We have a very talented leader who is a trained florist herself, retired. Many of our members come to learn how to do church flowers and we all have a go at that. Some others want to make buttonholes for their daughters wedding so we all learn how. The two hours at the class pass very quickly, we do chat and get to know one another and we always take something beautiful home. We use the flowers mostly in season and next week are creating a landscape of spring flowers on a piece of wood, roll on next time.