The tulip festival in Ottawa was a great place to spend a few hours on Mother's Day. These were among the million or so on display.
Here's a copy/paste from wikipedia for some info/history about tulips in our nation's capital:
"The Canadian Tulip Festival is a tulip festival, held annually in May in Ottawa, Canada. The festival claims to be the world's largest tulip festival, displaying over one million tulips, with attendance of over 500,000 visitors annually
In 1945, the Dutch royal family sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa in gratitude for Canadians having sheltered Princess Juliana and her daughters for the preceding three years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, in the Second World War.
The most noteworthy event during their time in Canada was the birth in 1943 of Princess Margriet to Princess Juliana at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. The maternity ward was declared to be officially a temporary part of international territory, so that she would be born in no country and would inherit only her Dutch citizenship from her mother. In 1946, Juliana sent another 20,500 bulbs requesting that a display be created for the hospital, and promised to send 10,000 more bulbs each year."
This is gorgeous. One of these years I'll get to Ottawa for the Tulip Festival. The tulips are a reminder not only of the Dutch Royal Family members who were in Canada during the war, but of ongoing Dutch gratitude for the part Canadian soldiers played in liberating their country. There are many reasons to admire the Dutch; for me two of them are 1) their resistance against the Nazi occupation even though they suffered so greatly during the Hunger Winter of 1944, and 2) the way they maintain the Canadian war graves in Holland. Each school child is given a grave to look after, and they are kept impeccably. Also, the Canadian national anthem is taught in Dutch schools. One sight which I think must be very beautiful and touching is that of a candle burning throughout the night on every war grave on Christmas Eve, as, I believe, a symbol of peace.
I haven't been on much since start of summer and just realized I hadn't seen a shot of yours in forever....hope all is well with you and yours and that you are just taking a hiatus too.
I have missed a lot of your photos and working backwards. Nice to have you back and thank you for stopping by my project. I hope all is well. I do not post every day and find it impossible to keep up with commenting. Sure takes a lot of time but cannot stay away for long. Beautiful shot.
