The Romantic.com

As an incurable romantic, I firmly believe that Autumn is that magical time when dreams are realised and hopes renewed and the turning of the leaves brings to fruition all the promise of spring and summer.

My love and I like to collect a leaf to mark the turning of each autumn, which we faithfully press in a beautiful hand painted heirloom flower press given to me by my mother-in-law. Our leaf collection started the year of our marriage in 1979 and has grown over 21 years, each added leaf marking the passage of time and becoming in a strange, mysterious way the embodiment of our hopes and dreams. 

The flower press has traveled with us around the world, and includes unnamed exotic leafy specimens pressed alongside those from an ancient Pohutukawa that clung to a cliff in the Bay of Island, New Zealand, a frond from a dainty English Willow overgrowing the River Avon and
pert Canadian Dogwood we carefully nurture in our own garden, to name but a few.

God willing, we plan to gather many more, each carrying part of our past into our future.