…on the bus, headed for Notre Dame de Paris, on our last day in France. Typing 1-finger style on a 7″ tablet; will it work? We’ll see. Yesterday, at Giverny, Monet’s place, was a glorious thrill of a lifetime experience for the gardeners, florists, and artists among us pilgrims. It is a place that Jonnie Sue has known of, and an experience she has longed for, for decades. Indeed, it is the main reason she wanted to make this pilgrimage; that and being in Rouen, where her uncle Steve was a sniper in a church tower protecting troops building a bridge in WW2. Even this technophile was amazed by the enormous diversity of the garden but even more so by Jonnie Sue’s extensive knowledge of each and every plant, some of which were variations she hadn’t seen before.
… (continuing now in front of the high altar at Notre Dame, awaiting the entrance of the St. Alban’s choir.) Anyone fortunate enough to have walked the Monet garden with Jonnie Sue would have been in a graduate seminar on horticulture.
One can hope and pray that mankind can come to appreciate the diversity of the peoples of this our earthly garden as much as we do the diversity of beautiful flowers.
Ron Hicks, Parish Verger, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Washington DC, 21-July-2015.
This is as written on the 21st. I wasn’t able to pull it together with a photo for upload to The Daily Cup with the tech tools I had in the time available between outings on the pilgrimage.
The Daily Cup 
St Therese of the Little Flower likes this.
This must have been a wonderful opportunity… I’d love to hear more from Johnie Sue
Ron: How I wish I had walked through Giverny gardens with Jonnie Sue. That would have been lovely. And the fact that your uncle was a sniper in a church tower hints at a story that must have mesmerised you as a youngster! I am in NH for the summer and look forward to seeing you in Sept. LOIS