Is it wedding season? I hadn't noticed.

It has been a glorious season so far. We have worked for some wonderful families, weddings go far beyond the intended couple. There are parents working so hard, excellent bridesmaids, ushers, friends and there is always somebody making bacon sandwiches, and cups of tea. Those last 24 hours can be fraught, table plans to finalise, a worry of whether divorced parents might be civil, and the fact that you are about to make this enormous commitment to another person. Those last 24 hours can also be the most fun, hysteria sets in, somebody will decide the driveway needs gravelling, there is a mad dash to the church for a rehearsal, and the Amazon primed cake stand will turn out to be fit for the wedding of a small doll. Those last 24 hours can also be tender, I watch parents reminisce about their own wedding, express hopes and fears for their children, wish that certain family members were alive to see it, and the ‘goodbye see you tomorrow’ of the bride and groom.

Months are spent whizzing up and down B roads filling tents and churches with flowers. During this time, it takes a lot to get me into a city, it is a narrowing criteria at the best of times, work, friends, exhibition, good Japanese restaurant. Despite having lived in cities for a large part of my adult life, if one or more of these criteria aren’t met, no go. My car is too tall for multi storey car parks, I don’t have the right apps for things, nor the right wardrobe, and there is little horizon.

Butt there was an exhibition and a talk, that part was always going to be a challenge, but the exhibition. I couldn’t get it out of head, so went back the week after. “I can only tell you what my eyes” see an exhibition of Giles Duley’s work photographing refugees, people. The photograph of Shamah from Homs is one I went back to see. Taken in a camp in Jordan, the same age as a grandmother i had just left in a tent tying ribbon on napkins for her granddaughters wedding. The same proud and dignified stance, and sense of trust. I think that was why the photographs were so powerful, they trusted the person behind the camera, allowed themselves to be seen.

I bought the book, and i’ll leave it in the shop for you to look at whilst I make up your bouquet, or if you are just queuing to see the dog. Either way.

The talk was filmed, so it might be available online somewhere, but in the meantime you can read more here Legacy of War foundation and if you happen to be in Leicester tomorrow, the exhibition has its last day at The Gallery de montfort University.

Lately and in no particular order

This post contains gifted items.

I’m not an influencer, but an enormous fan of transparency, so we are going to get that out there in the first instance. One book gifted by the author because she is a friend, (In Bloom) and the other by a publisher (The Flower Fix) All the others I purchased.

For reasons that we might go in to one day, I have a renewed interest in the written word. A lady just came in to try and sell me some floor mats, and i’ve lost my train of thought, but books are good, I think is where we got to.

There are also a lot of them, and they come with 50% off the RRP from Amazon, with a huge social media jazz handing, and then end up in the charity shop. Magazines, those that did not die, have gone the other way. They now cost £25.00 are all but advertisement free, and contain some of the most creative work I have seen for a long time. These ones I think are worthy of your time, and I am keen for more suggestions.

1. The Allotment Andrew Buurman from Dewi Lewis publishing a glorious photographic story of the largest allotment site in the UK.

2. In Bloom by Clare Nolan. I have known Clare for years, and this book is glorious. Full of information on growing and arranging and it is beautifully photographed by Clare herself. I have had my copy for a few weeks, and it is full of post it notes, as I have devoured the information, and learnt what better to do next year.

3. The Flower Fix by Anna Potter and India Hobson. This is everything you would expect from the power house that is Anna and India. Instantly recognisable images, wonderful sets and a how to section.

4. Pleasure Garden. Magazine from The Garden Edit I don’t know that i’m cool enough for this magazine, but it will make you ask a lot of questions about your creativity, inspire you to be better, and leave you feeling hopelessly inadequate all at the same time. If you are into that form of masochism, it is painfully beautiful.

5. Small Town Inertia J.A. Mortram Blue Coat Press If you buy any of these books, buy this book, buy a print, follow on Instagram, go and see the exhibition, and then come back to me and we will talk about it in another post. I have had the book in the shop, and the conversations that have stemmed from it have been really interesting, insightful and worrying.

Robert de Niro's waiting

talking Italian 

"God you're high maintenance" said a man with laughter as he came to collect his Valentine flowers. I was giving him instruction on flower transportation at the time. Then another man came to collect his, he carefully unfolded a full colour illustrated map detailing three possible overnight flower storage locations. None were really right but with "high maintenance" ringing in my ears I though it best if he just didn't tell me. You have to let them fly.

Conversations in the shop have had a Valentine's theme, of love, of lust

of language

the clickbait vocabulary

OBSESSED

exclamation points spill from lips in abundance, rising inflection has turned to song.  Once heard can never be unheard and will irritate you as much as it does Kenneth and I. Reset your ears here

Of course, I can wax lyrical about the flowers, tell tales of customers, but we all know the day was really about the dog. 

Thats just geography

"I'm calling from London" said a voice with more than a modicum of irritation and superiority. When people announce their geographical location it is to explain a bad phone line, a need to crack on with this as it is costing them a small fortune or an unfamiliarity with our native flowers.  When they announce they are 98 miles due south, it is announce that they are more cosmopolitan, that they fear in the country we are all wrapping chrysanths in polyprop ribbon with a toothless smile and a limited vocabulary.

I always choose to kill people with kindness in these circumstances, disarming them, and their preconceptions. The irony is I have actually grown some chrysanths, they went in late, so didn't reach the competition size I was looking for. Next year.

In a time of blurred boundaries, seasons and timezones, when our language is as homogenised as our high streets, the divide between town and country remains. 

Kenneth telphoned earlier in the week to invite me to a luncheon, he explained  that the guest list was to be comprised of "old fogies some half a century older than you, would you mind?" He has clearly never met any of my boyfriends. 

In other interesting things to think about I mentioned this article on instagram. An article on regret by Emma Freud. It led to some very interesting conversations in the shop, and I also recommended the podcast The regrets of the dying earlier in the year, and if you haven't listened to the series then do. We always regret the things we didn't do, rather than those we did, held back by fear, duty, uncertainty, vanity.