Thistles

I took this picture yesterday in a street near my working place, during my lunch break walk. At the moment I had no idea why I got suddenly all fascinated by this bunch of thistles. It is a symbol of Scotland, it is also on the flag of Montreal, which might explain my interest a bit. But thistles are also for me related to a few childhood memories: we had plenty of them where I was growing up, we used to call them "piquants" (spikies) and they stuck to our clothes and were, well, spiky and itchy. When I was 12 or 13, a friend of mine once threw a couple down the back of my shirt as a joke, it spoiled our friendship for weeks. I guess these thistles triggered all these memories.