Wild roses tea and hiking with my mom

This year I decided to surprise my mom with visit just few days before mother’s day. I was inspired by post I saw on facebook few weeks ago. The post was talking about how parents wish their kids continue to come back home with out calling and knocking on the door, just walk in like they use to do it when they were younger. They will love to see us searching in the fridge for some snacks, lay on the couch to watch TV, have dinner together like the old times. The author’s name was not written so I can not mention it. This post brought tears in my eyes. I realize how much I miss my mom. So I did it. Within few days I organised everything the tickets, and connections and I arrived unexpected on her door. I brought  her so much joy and happiness with my gesture. It is amazing feeling to see your mom happy and smiling, knowing that you are the reason behind that.

Every time I visit my mom in Greece I learn something new and useful.  My mom is one of those people who have great respect to Mother Nature. She believes Mother Nature have the power to heal our body and our soul.

As I remember myself, she was always interesting about different kind of herbs, forest wild fruits and about their healing abilities. When I was younger I wasn’t especially interested for her stories about herbs, but as I’m getting older I start to like and I enjoy to follow her on her excursions when ever I come to Greece. It is really amazing experience every time.

It is spring time in Greece now, yesterday afternoon she said to me, let’s go for wild roses tea, it is perfect day today, I know some great spots with a lot of wild roses bushes on the hills above the city. So I went.

But my mom is well-trained, this is her well-known ground. She almost know every rock on this path. Even she is 66 years old she was climbing faster than me. I was trying to follow her like a little frightened goat who follows her mama goat. She was smiling and talking about how I should consider to quit smoking soon is possible, and how the hiking in the nature is good for our body as exercise and also good for our soul.

She said, this escapes to the nature gives her the joy of  life. Next week if the weather is great, she promise together with few of her best friends who share the same interest,  they will take me to the top of the hill, true the fragrant path as they call it. And over there we can rest she said and have nice picnic and enjoy the astonishing view over the city. If we manage to do it while I’m here it will be enough material and photos for one more article I am sure.

As we continue with hiking she keep talking about wild roses, that we can find them in dry and sunny places. She said we can even eat fresh young leaves direct from branches also the rose petals and they contain a high percentage of vitamin C. She make tea from wild roses petals. This tea is good for blood, stronger heart, nerve, clean liver and wound organs, also relieves tired body. Rose tea is a great tool if your throat hurts as well as a mouthwash if you have a fungal infection. It’s good to drink it if you have abundant menstruation,  pain in uterus, headache, or if you suffer from insomnia.

My mom mix wild roses petals with petals of fragrant Centifolia roses, that some people call them roses of a hundred petals, or “cabbage” roses, my mom have a lot of them in her garden. The important think to know is that she never spray her roses with chemicals for insects. If you have any kind of roses and before they open you see some green bugs on their buds, then put one tea-spoon of baking soda in the half liter of water, mix and spray on. She dry rose petals in the shade, as the direct sun will quickly fade any color of the petals.The more faded, are the less fragrant as well, so it’s important to keep your petals in a shadow. Once dried, keep them as any other dried herbs in the dry and dark place in the glass jar. The recipe for tea is : one spoon of dried petals pour with 2 ml of boiling water, wait 10 minutes then strain. The best way to sweeten the tea is with honey. It should be taken half an hour before meals.

The roses are not only beautiful they also smell very nice. The smell of wild roses can make people happy and strengthens the defensive power of their organism. Everybody love roses. We give roses as the gift to our beloved ones, to express our love and gratitude. Roses are always present to witness the most memorable moments of our lives. They also have healing powers. If you find this article about roses interesting, then search for recipes on the internet. Learn how you can make essential oils from roses, or rosewater, syrup from roses, liqueur, and there are so many ways that you can use them in your kitchen or for beauty.

I enjoyed very much this hiking with my mom. This wild roses kind of bring my mom and me together after long time we were apart.  I live in The Netherlands and we don’t see each other so often.The hiking itself was memorable experience. I help her to collect the wild roses petals. They fall easy from the branches. Even we collect a lot of petals there were hundreds of new buds on the bushes ready to open. In the evening before dinner we had a cup of wild roses tea together. Not the ones that we collected but other that were all ready dried that my mom collected before.  The tea is very tasty and fragrant I love it. Even though I don’t drink tea very often this one was delicious. I can definitely recommend everyone to try it.

The message I would like to give to all of you through this article is simple. You don’t need a lot to be happy or make someone else happy. Especially when it comes to our parents. Just be there for them, they were always there for us when ever we needed. Thanks to them we exist. I would love to inspire you to surprise your parents as I did. Love and appreciate your parents. We are often so busy growing up, so we forget that they are also growing old. Our parents most of the time act strong in front of us, but they are also fragile like everyone else. This moments you spend with your parents is something that nobody can ever take from you. Remember your yesterdays. Plan your tomorrows. Enjoy today.