Bring forth May flowers

I was looking for flowery postcards for this Postcard Friendship Friday entry and discovered quite a number of them and the majority, like this one, from the Netherlands.  I don't list flowers among my preferences but in this case at least it probably comes under the art banner.

It's once of Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies, the Lilac Fairy.  It was a good choice by the sender because I've always loved lilac.  I had a constant battle with my father during May because he believed having lilac indoors would bring bad luck but as soon as I had my own garden with a lilac tree I could have that wonderful scent around my home as much as I liked. He was not alone in that belief though some people restrict the ban to white lilac.

If you'd like to see more Flower Fairies, do visit Kathy Matthews at Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy.  She completed the A-Z Challenge last month using all Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies, though her letter L was lily of the valley.

I'll leave you with a couple of verses of Albert Noyes' poem "The Barrel Organ".  There are a good many more verses but I remember these from having to learn them at school when I was very young.  I don't know which came into my life first, the poem or the lilac tree.

Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume,
The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!)
And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of sky
The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday hosted on Beth Niquette's blog, The Best Hearts are Crunchy.