full days

Since last hitting the blog button it's been fairly busy. Huberta and Ursula saved my life when they stayed for two weeks as volunteers, we had a great time too and by complete lucky chance fulfilled Ursula's greatest dream to go to Chelsea.... I enjoyed putting some flowers together for the GI Chelsea lecture at the RGS, decided at the last minute to go for form rather than flower as the lecture space meant the flowers would scarcely be seen but the shadows would be prominent. For the lecture theatre I borrowed amazing huge cobalt blue jars which were the stars of the show and filled them with single types of widish flowers - sweet rocket, ox-eyes, aquilegias, iris, and Oriental poppies. Elsewhere it was urns on RGS fantastic pedestals. Sadly it took me almost seven hours to get into London as an accident on the M4 meant it was closed for hours. So it was a longish day, leaving at 6am and getting back home at 2.30am! Two days later it was up to town again for weddings in Fulham and Holland Park. No pictures yet, apart from a single globe, but they will appear.
We dressed a reception at Fulham Palace and have to say it was not a well organised venue, we arrived at the allotted time (11am) to find there was no-one to speak to us, the woman who'd arranged it all was away and her deputy wasn't in, no-one knew what was going on or even where we should go! But all worked out fine. Meg of course was wonderful as always and thanks so much to Ali Harvie who took a day off from her real work to help, along with my wonderful daughter Rowan. And on the Saturday we even released Rowan's wonderful partner Dan's hidden flower arranging skills!

 And this week was boxes of loose flowers flying over the country for diy weddings, bunches and bouquets for a wedding in Pembrokeshire which the bride very helpfully collected, a church and marquee wedding locally, and peony and wild bouquets and jam jars for two more weddings. Rather full on. Photos from the church and marquee wedding will hopefully appear as the flowers were beautiful and the bouquets very pretty but there was a bit of a glitsch at this one. Threequarters of the way through arranging everything the bride's father and sister appeared to tell Meg and I that we were using the wrong flowers. Hmm. Largely to do with an interpretation of what colour alchemilla is. Note to remember that some people apparently believe that alchemilla is bright yellow. And then queries about the bouquets and all else, assuming that I was perhaps colour blind I fear. So it was a bit of a process. Very luckily Meg is not only the best church flower arranger around, she is also an excellent peacemaker. I'm afraid the church heard some rather anglo saxon language from me once the said father and sister had left the building. I apologised to the vicar, she said god would be amused not perturbed. Anyway, the upshot was that when Meg went to drop off the rest of the flowers at the bride's venue, sister, father and all assembled had by then decided the flowers were just perfect and it was exactly what they wanted. Well thank heavens for that! (I decided to keep rather a low profile as I realised I was rather tired and not in the mood for controversy).

And Saturday ended with me as a guest at a truly lovely wedding at the amazing Kinnersley Castle nearby. Many musicians, wonderful food, fabulous company and many jam jars.