Gloucester Cathedral Flower Festival

Earlier this month my mum came to visit last week, to see the advance copy of my book and ooh over it in a proud, maternal fashion.

We also took a trip to see the "Glorious Gloucestershire" flower festival at Gloucester Cathedral, which was pretty awesome.

All the flowers were arranged by the flower guilds from churches across the county - there were some quite traditional floral arrangements designed to perfectly suit their setting, and lots of creative displays with a historical or other local theme.


It was wonderful (if slightly surreal) to see flowers, trees and bits of Costwold hedgerow emerging from all the corners of the Cathedral. No space was left unfilled with flowers, with large displays dotted round the main spaces and smaller ones tucked on ledges and around monuments.

The festival also had the same effect as the scuplture exhibition, Crucible held at the Cathedral last year, that of making you look closely at spaces and details in the building that you would otherwise not have noticed.


There were some very fun displays too, including this one themed around goats cheese (complete with a goat munching on some of the flowers)...


... and this homage to the annual cheese rolling at Cooper's Hill, recreated with a cast of knitted characters:


This display was one of my favourites, celebrating the Dymock Poets and the countryside they walked in.

While I was there, I also couldn't resist taking some snaps of the lovely patterned tiles...

... and some of the intricate needlework:


All in all, a very lovely day out!