tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63502778477486606682023-11-26T09:18:07.190+00:00Flowers by ShaminiA blog to share my love of floristry and gardening, with occasional distractions from my other loves - films, literature, and art.Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.comBlogger325125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-86840305873501036942019-09-03T19:18:00.001+01:002021-07-24T14:28:50.256+01:00London at dawn: City at sunrise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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About this time last year, I went on an early-morning tour of London with Gemma Seltzer from <a href="https://write-and-shine.com/" target="_blank">Write & Shine</a> and Saira Niazi from <a href="https://www.livinglondon.org/" target="_blank">Living London</a> (both pictured above). Saira led us around places I'd been to before, such as The Vaults (graffiti-covered tunnels where I saw <a href="https://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2016/03/falling-right-through-earth-for-alice.html" target="_blank">Alice's Adventures Underground</a>), Cross Bones Garden (where people, many believed to be prostitutes, are buried and surrounded by ribbon-covered railings and kind messages), Borough Market, Gabriel's Wharf and the bridges along the River Thames.<br />
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We went past places that hold happy memories for me (Konditor and Cook, where I would be going for a cake lock-in later that day; Tate Modern; Shakespeare's Globe) and places that hold sadder or bittersweet memories for me (the new Cancer Centre at Guy's Hospital, where I went with Vicky when she had radiotherapy; Blackfriars Station, where I met Helen the last time we went out in London).<br />
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Saira also led us around places I'd never seen, including a small, hidden garden with a tiny library. As well as being a lovely guide, she was so informative and knowledgeable. It's nice to learn new things about your city, especially when you've been living here all your life. Gemma gave us writing exercises every so often, and there was just enough time to take a few photos before we moved on to the next sight. Those of us with cameras lagged behind everyone else, but it was a great opportunity to take photos of places you wouldn't usually photograph. It made you see the beauty in the ordinary and look out for the unexpected. It was a truly wonderful morning and at the end we sat down near Tower Bridge, had a breakfast picnic and chatted.<br />
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There will be another early-morning tour with Living London and Write & Shine this Thursday. This time it will be set around Chelsea and Battersea. It's from 6.30am to 9am, so you might be able to fit it in before work, if you can make yourself get early trains or buses to Sloane Square! Details <a href="https://write-and-shine.com/featured/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Living London runs other walks around London. Write & Shine also runs writing workshops a little bit later in the morning (7.15am or 9am starts) and I have been going these regularly this year. It's been a lovely way to get back into writing, and I even got a tiny piece of flash fiction published in an anthology which you can buy <a href="https://arachnepress.com/books/short-stories/story-cities/" target="_blank">here</a> from Arachne Press. For me, it's about writing for writing's sake, enjoying it, and (if you want to) having the courage to put your writing out there. It's scary, but I'm glad I've become braver about my writing this year. Seeing my friends and family in the audience when I read my story out at the book launch in June was one of the most surreal and proud moments of my life. It's taken a long to get here, but I'm here.<br />
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Here are some photos from the dawn tour last year. I often get overwhelmed by the number of photos I take (this is the problem with digital cameras) and rather than edit and share a few, I hide them away and don't do anything with them...which is silly!<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-74058779800831036902018-12-24T08:49:00.001+00:002018-12-24T08:53:10.510+00:00The ending of The SnowmanLast year I wrote a little <a href="https://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2017/12/christmas-eve.html" target="_blank">piece</a> on Christmas Eve, inspired by Ian McMillan's beautiful <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/stories-42426094" target="_blank">article</a> about his memories of Christmas with his father. When I read it last year, I was aware that it would be my last Christmas Eve with my friend Helen who I met most years for a pre-Christmas drink.<br />
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This morning I woke up early, and felt a gentle sadness that this is our first Christmas without her. I've <a href="https://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2018/05/little-dancer.html" target="_blank">written</a> about her illness and my memories of her. The knowing but not quite believing she's gone is something that has marked the months since her death. I made a heart-shaped, mossy wreath and took it to her grave this morning, and I'm meeting her mum later in the cafe where Helen and I used to meet (moss symbolises maternal love in the language of flowers). I haven't been there since she died, and I think a part of me will be expecting her to walk through the door.<br />
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I'm sad I won't see her smile, her pretty writing on my Christmas card, the sparkle in her blue eyes when she decided to have a kir royale or a mimosa instead of a coffee or tea. I'm sad we won't wait for the bus together at the same bus stop where we used to wait when we worked together as teenagers. I'm sad that instead of wrapping up a present for Helen yesterday, I was wrapping presents for her sweet nieces who've never had a Christmas without her.<br />
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Last year I watched <i>The Snowman</i> like I do every year, but the ending had me in tears like it never had before. It's funny - we did a play of <i>The Snowman</i> at primary school and I played the boy, but that was back when I didn't really understand the ending.<br />
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There's comfort in crying about people you've loved and lost, and I've already cried a few times over the last week when I've talked about Helen. I was lucky to have had her as a friend for so long. I felt her love a few months ago when I had a big birthday, and I am sure I will feel her love this Christmas. I am lucky that I am still close to her family, and I can share the love with them. And I am lucky to have other friends and family who have made me feel so loved over the last few months.<br />
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I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, full of joy and love.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-38233229127433615552018-09-28T11:56:00.003+01:002018-09-28T12:24:38.791+01:00Autumn blues (and pinks)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's officially autumn. I was wearing two layers at the weekend, it was dark when I got home from long days at work at the start of the month, and I'm pretty sure I saw frost on the grass earlier this week.<br />
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But as it warmed up this week, I could enjoy the late roses and pink sedum. And butterflies have come out dancing again.<br />
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I know some people love autumn - the friends I visited last weekend were happy it's autumn now, and last week when I went to a <a href="https://write-and-shine.com/" target="_blank">Write and Shine</a> workshop, a lot of the writers seemed excited or happy or at least gently optimistic about the autumn equinox. When we went round the table, each saying one word that came to our mind when we thought of autumn, I said "sad".<br />
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I feel blue when the days get shorter and colder and darker. I feel sad when I see the summer flowers shutting up shop for the year. And my heart sinks a little when I see the Halloween and Christmas things in the shops before the summer is over.<br />
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The photos above were taken at Selfridges on a beautiful warm day in August. Christmas comes very early to Oxford Street each year, but it's still strange to see. The David Bowie <a href="http://www.selfridges.com/GB/en/cat/christmas-david-bowie-ornament-14cm_200-3002220-GO1065/" target="_blank">bauble </a>is pretty cool if you have money to burn. I am sentimental though, so my <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-40-year-old-bauble.html" target="_blank">favourite Christmas decorations</a> are the oldest ones with the fondest memories attached to them.<br />
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Today is the big <a href="https://www.macmillan.org.uk/" target="_blank">Macmillan </a>coffee morning. This time last year I went to Helen's parents' house where Helen and her mother ran a coffee morning as they had done on previous years. But last year's was poignant - the beautiful young woman in the green Macmillan t-shirt serving us tea, coffee and cake had been diagnosed with terminal cancer six months earlier, and would leave us seven months later. The last few weeks, several of her photos and videos have suddenly brought me to tears. My grief is cyclical and I feel like I'm back at disbelief and deep sadness.<br />
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The last few Septembers, Helen's mother and I met at the local allotments and bought dahlias. I love the bundle of dahlias wrapped in newspaper - it reminds me of a passage from the late <a href="http://www.jane-packer.co.uk/UK.html" target="_blank">Jane Packer's</a> book, where she remembers her grandfather bringing allotment dahlias for her grandmother. Last September, I gave flowers for Helen - Darcey David Austin roses (named after her fellow dancer Darcey Bussell) and sunflowers with British lisianthus - and a smaller posy for her mother. I love the deep pink-reds and yellows of the season. The colours almost banish the blues of the shorter days. This year her mother and I meant to go to the allotment open day, but life got in the way.<br />
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Tomorrow I'm going on the first <a href="http://www.stchristophers.org.uk/twilightwalk" target="_blank">Twilight Walk</a> organised by both St Christopher's Hospice and Greenwich and Bexley Hospice, walking around Greenwich and Blackheath. St Christopher's looked after <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2017/06/on-national-pink-day-funeral-for-friend.html" target="_blank">Vicky </a>as an outpatient for a few years and as an inpatient for the last five weeks of her life. Vicky's fundraising page is <a href="https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-display/showROSomeoneSpecialPage?pageUrl=VictoriaCooper" target="_blank">here</a>. St Christopher's also looked after <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2018/05/little-dancer.html" target="_blank">Helen </a>as an outpatient and at home. Helen's fundraising page is <a href="https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/helen-evans-bromley" target="_blank">here</a>. And Greenwich and Bexley Hospice is where I've received bereavement counselling for the past year (as I'd worked as a bereavement counsellor at St Christopher's for three years, I couldn't have counselling there because too many people knew me). My sessions are about to come to end, and I'm utterly grateful to the hospice, the bereavement service, and my incredible counsellor for the support they've given me during this wretched year. You can donate to Greenwich and Bexley <a href="https://www.communityhospice.org.uk/support-us/ways-to-give/donate-now/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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I hope you have lovely weekends and the sun shines for you.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-31449725734835344842018-08-16T18:08:00.000+01:002018-08-16T18:43:57.780+01:00Hearts and dreams<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I haven't posted much lately, although I do have some flowery photos to share.<br />
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This morning I had a lovely dream about Helen. She still had cancer but she was so joyful and I talked to her after she'd been cycling in one of the royal parks in London (not something Helen did in real life). I have been thinking about her more than usual this week, so this dream was an incredible comfort to me.<br />
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I didn't share this photo here before, but I will now - it's the one <a href="https://www.lovemissd.co.uk/" target="_blank">Dawn Selway</a> took as I delivered Helen's bridal flowers two and half years ago. Dawn is one quick photographer...but as I managed to hide my face in time, I guess my reflexes are pretty sharp, too!<br />
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I made a floral heart for Helen's church back in June. It was all homegrown British flowers, before the heatwave scorched half of them. There were scented roses and sweet peas, strawflowers, honeysuckle, and flowering hebe, Even though I'm not religious, I appreciate the fact that Helen was, and that her faith was personal but strong. Taking my heart to her church felt like a way to connect to her.<br />
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Today I visited Clayton at <a href="http://varleyandvarley.co.uk/" target="_blank">Varley and Varley's</a> beautiful new premises in Beckenham, and I took a delivery of flowers. Scented roses with the fantastic name 'Lady Killer', red snapdragons, fluffy grasses, and some British flowers and foliage: yellow dill, pittosporum, and dark physocarpus. It wasn't intentional, but now I can see it was the sort of arrangement I would have done for Vicky - those reds and those textures.<br />
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It was nice to see the place where families and friends can come to talk to their funeral director, at a particularly difficult time of their lives. We talked for a while about our work and the people important to us. He asked me about Helen, and we remembered Vicky (it would have been her 35th birthday today). I still find it astonishing and bitterly unfair that I met Vicky on the night of the US election in 2016 and met Helen the morning after, but both of them are gone now.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-84378642990896194422018-07-03T15:51:00.002+01:002019-03-03T16:45:21.549+00:00Sweetness and misanthropy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As I <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2018/05/little-dancer.html" target="_blank">mentioned </a>a couple of months ago, my little sister has had a difficult year. It's horrendously tough for everyone - you have battles and tension almost every hour of every day, and a constant worry about the future.<br />
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I'm off work for a while, partly because it was getting too hard to do bereavement work when I was grieving for Helen, and partly because I need to help out more with my sister (and it's been hard to grieve because of the situation with her as well). This morning she was aggressive and anxious and her mood would change in a few seconds. But eventually she sat down and watched me while I went outside and cut a bucket of flowers. I'm growing strawflowers for the first time, which is exciting.<br />
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She let me sit near her arranging them in a couple of vases, and she even added a few cosmos herself.<br />
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Then I made a little posy and she modelled it for me before hiding away - she's more camera-shy than me. I hope the gentle, sweet scent of the roses and sweet peas is as calming for her as it is for me. I know she gets overwhelmed by noises and people because of her autism, but she does appear to be soothed by some scents. We used to go to Nymans in Sussex, and she seemed to love the <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2015/07/nymans-in-june-smelling-roses.html" target="_blank">rose garden</a> there.<br />
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In other news, only one of my cornflower seeds successfully made it into a flowering plant. It's not blue, but hot pink, which I think would have pleased Vicky as much as Helen.<br />
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Thistles are growing stronger this year. There's a <a href="https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/self-knowledge-questionnaire/" target="_blank">quiz </a>I do every few months, and I get different results each time, even though the questions remain the same. I often get "misanthropy" as one of my qualities, and thistles symbolise this. The association between thistles and misanthropy is written about beautifully in the novel <i>The Language of Flowers</i> by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, which Helen bought me five years ago. I'd never heard of it, but I read it after my ex and I broke up. The ending made me cry. As Mandy Kirkby says in her reference book, also called <i>The Language of Flowers</i>, "to brush against [a thistle] is to risk a sharp wound, and to tread on it is a painful experience indeed...There is no doubt as to the thistle's intention: stay away from me." She goes on to describe how the thistle became an emblem for Scotland - its defiance and durability was seen as a strength.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-91838126650810705912018-06-22T08:29:00.001+01:002018-06-22T08:29:49.156+01:00British Flowers Week 2018: Yellow cosmos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My computer is being mended, so I can't use it to write or to upload or edit photos, and yesterday turned out to be a pretty awful day. So I didn't post as planned.<br />
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But it's a new day now, and even though I'm just using a camera phone and filters, and I'm posting using my mobile, I want to share pictures of my first yellow cosmos.<br />
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I grew <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2014/11/farewell-cosmos.html" target="_blank">cosmos</a> a few years ago, and it amazed me how a £2 pack of seeds could produce buckets of flowers all through summer and right into November. They are such versatile flowers and the movement they add is wonderful - they dance around in the garden and the vase. The only problem I sometimes have is the pollen dropping - but that can be remedied by a quick, gentle spray with hairspray or artist's fixative.<br />
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I think I first saw yellow cosmos when Mike Rogers posted photos of his Xanthos cosmos and I thought pale yellow would make a nice change from white and pink, and yellow seems to amplify the Victorian meaning of cosmos: joy. You can read Mike's blog <a href="https://flightplot.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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So here are my yellow cosmos with pink sweet peas, in an old diffuser bottle. I love pink and yellow - it's such a cheerful combination.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-39934774488413480262018-06-20T18:04:00.003+01:002018-06-22T08:30:22.951+01:00British Flowers Week 2018: Canterbury bells<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After a couple of years of nurturing and patience, my Canterbury bells, which I grew from <a href="https://www.hardysplants.co.uk/" target="_blank">Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants</a> seeds, flowered this year.<br />
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I used campanula for Mother's Day a few years ago - you can read about their symbolism <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2014/03/gratitude-and-youthful-innocence.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and why they are a lovely flower to give to someone.<br />
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And here they are now with scented roses and pink escallonia from the garden.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-2779154397878764322018-06-19T08:19:00.003+01:002018-06-19T08:19:59.019+01:00British Flowers Week 2018: Not quite orange blossom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today's post is about philadelpus, also known as mock orange because it has an incredible scent like orange blossom. It grows tall and it looks beautiful against a clear blue sky. It also looks gorgeous massed together in an arrangement.<br />
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It looks beautiful on its own or mixed with a couple of other colours. In the picture below it's with physocarpus.<br />
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Close up:<br />
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Here it is with delicate nigella (which I no longer have this year after a fox or two jumped all over them...I was not impressed!):<br />
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I wanted to use a Snapple bottle because of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnMOG4gVB4w" target="_blank">Clueless </a>line: "I gave him my lemon Snapple and I took his sucky Italian roast." The character Cher uses her unwanted thermos of coffee to try to set up two teachers on a coffee date.<br />
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This was for British Flowers Week <a href="https://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2015/06/british-flowers-week-british-flowers.html" target="_blank">a few years ago</a> - with white alliums, jasmine, and ammi. The beautiful jar is orange blossom honey from Tiptree. And the lovely scent of mock orange and jasmine overpowers the not-so-nice scent of alliums!<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-12812752716515686792018-06-18T13:17:00.001+01:002018-06-18T14:36:27.762+01:00British Flowers Week 2018: Sweet peas <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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British Flowers Week starts today, so I thought I'd try to post every day this week. Starting off with a small gardening victory.<br />
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I met up with Sara from <a href="http://myflowerpatch.co.uk/" target="_blank">My Flower Patch</a> and her husband when they came to London for a few days back in March. It was snowing and cold so we found a nice tapas restaurant in Bloomsbury and stayed there in the warm all afternoon. She told me about the planning and organising ahead of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show - Sara is a member of <a href="https://www.flowersfromthefarm.co.uk/" target="_blank">Flowers From The Farm</a> and they had their first <a href="https://www.hortweek.com/chelsea-coverage-increased-enquiries-say-uk-cut-flower-growers/ornamentals/article/1466038" target="_blank">stand at the show</a> in May. I didn't envy her - it sounded like so much hard work. It paid off in the end as they won a gold medal!<br />
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When Sara asked me what I was growing this year, I told her I'd planned to sow sweet peas but I had left it too late. She told me a tip (which I think Gill Hodgson, who founded Flowers from the Farm, had passed on to her) which was to sow them in the small pots you get from a takeaway, on damp kitchen paper or cotton wool pads, and keep them indoors until they germinate. She said if I was lucky I would have flowers in September!<br />
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So the week after that, I washed all the pots after a Friday night thali from the local Sri Lankan grocery, I lay folded strips of kitchen paper inside each one, added a few drops of water so they were damp, and spaced out a few sweet pea seeds inside every pot. Then put the lids on and placed them on a window sill above a radiator. I checked them each day, and if they were drying up I added a few more drops of water. It was kind of like growing cress on blotting paper at school, except these were covered. And I never got excited about eating cress, whereas I do get excited about cutting sweet peas for a vase.<br />
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After a week, most of the seeds had germinated. I planted them in small, tall pots.<br />
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Fast forward three months and I have my first sweet peas flowering! The stems are a bit stumpy; unlike the amazing long stems I've grown before from winter sowings.<br />
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But they're pretty and they smell gorgeous.<br />
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The day after Helen died, I took some flowers round for her parents and nieces. I had cut some hellebores, apple mint, and bluebells from the garden and bought British sweet peas, narcissi, and tulips. I hoped the gentle scent would be comforting and not overwhelming or even irritating. Fortunately, Helen's mother said it was nice to have flowers again because they'd had to throw out the wilted ones which were given when Helen was ill.<br />
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It's hard to find the motivation to do things when you're troubled or when you're grieving. When I visited Helen's parents after the funeral, her mother told me that she didn't feel like gardening, and I could really empathise. I asked if she'd like some plants because I had too many, and she said OK. So the next time I went round, I took some sweet peas and cosmos. I went round last week and saw the sweet peas are in a beautiful homemade wigwam, and the cosmos are in the flower bed. Busy Lizzies are planted up in containers hanging from the fence, and the garden is looking lovely and loved. We talked about Helen and there's sadness and anger and confusion and guilt. But there's tenderness and tiny pieces of joy as well.<br />
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Sweet peas mean delicate pleasures in the Victorian language of flowers, but I've just seen that they also symbolise departure. This feels especially poignant this year. I also have another friend in mind - I don't want to name them in case they don't want me to, but I know they're going through a hard time now and sweet peas are special flowers for them.<br />
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For all of the healing these flowers can bring, I'm glad I managed to grow them. So thank you for the nudge, Sara.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-29559203106670121552018-06-06T04:39:00.000+01:002018-06-06T04:48:17.825+01:00Who wants to live forever? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.com/2017/06/on-national-pink-day-funeral-for-friend.html" target="_blank">Vicky's</a> first anniversary was last weekend. The date she died is hard to forget anyway, but it's especially noticeable because it happened to be the same day as the London Bridge attack.
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I was on a train back from Oxford, where I'd visited my friends and their two adorable young daughters. They had built a greenhouse from plastic bottles that they'd collected over time and I was amazed to see that it had withstood storms and snow and was being used to house vegetable plants. I noticed a missed call and a voicemail when my friends' eldest asked me to get my phone and take a photo of the afternoon tea that she had helped to make. I knew the voicemail was bad news and I didn't want to listen and suddenly be weird, tearful or panicked in front of the girls. I told my friend I needed to leave soon, so we all had tea and twenty minutes later I was in his car on the way to the train station. I listened to the message and phoned Vicky's sister and told her I would be there as soon as I could. But as I was on the train back to Paddington I got a call to say Vicky had just died.
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I felt a bit lost. I walked to the sphinx by Cleopatra's Needle and sat between the paws of my favourite one. I phoned a bereavement counsellor friend from St Christopher's Hospice, and even though he was at a stag do, he took five minutes to sober up a bit and phoned me back. At one point he told me I was in shock. I find it very powerful to hear someone tell me when I'm in shock because, I suppose, I don't realise myself. I could see that as rubbish as things were, I was very fortunate to have a support group of friends who were conversant in the awful language of grief. I still am - and many of those friends have supported me again this year during Helen's illness and after her death.
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I walked east along the river, wandered around the City and saw the roses outside St Paul's. I kept walking until I got tired, then got a train home. I didn't watch the news and I didn't look at social media, so I had no idea what had happened in Southwark.
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A few days after Vicky's funeral, I walked around Southwark and suddenly came across the sea of wilting flowers and the wall of supportive messages written on candy-coloured Post-it notes.
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This year, I cut some of the scented flowers and herbs that Vicky had liked - roses, mock orange, and sage. I made a posy in a Tiptree jam jar in memory of Vicky. It was Victoria Plum jam, the perfect jar for her. And for the last few days I've been listening to the Queen song that played out Vicky's funeral and reduced many people to an emotional wreck: <a href="https://youtu.be/_Jtpf8N5IDE" target="_blank">Who Wants to Live Forever. </a><br />
<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-42691451060339227292018-05-31T18:24:00.001+01:002018-05-31T19:11:41.669+01:00Comfort in decay<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>I'm sorry. But shouldn't you send bouquets to people who've got something to celebrate like, you know, an anniversary or a new job or something? Not losing a bloody baby. I mean, what do flowers do anyway? Nothing. You know, they just sit there, reminding you of why they were sent to you, and then they die. Well I've got that to look forward to, haven't I?</b></div>
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Jenny, <i>Cold Feet</i></div>
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This episode of <i>Cold Feet</i> where Jenny and Pete receive a barrage of bouquets after their miscarriage is one I use to illustrate why sympathy flowers are problematic. Cut flowers aren't plants, and they have a limited life.<br />
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I've heard stories of people who've taken immense comfort in the sympathy flowers that were given to them, and even some who took the funeral flowers back home. But I've also witnessed people's anger as they recounted people giving flowers when the person who died couldn't stand them, or distress as their home started to feel like a hospital room with bouquets and baskets everywhere, or the stress of running out of vases. (I recommend only sending sympathy flowers in a container that can be displayed.)<br />
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After Helen's funeral, most of the leftover flowers went to her family and friends. I had a few White O'Hara roses, feverfew, rosemary and Solomon's Seal. I put them in the blue Portmerion vase that Helen had seen displaying narcissi and delphiniums when she told me she was engaged.<br />
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I took great comfort in the scent of the roses. I would lean towards them and inhale deeply, as if they were an oxygen mask. A few years ago, my therapist friend <a href="http://www.lisahardi.co.uk/" target="_blank">Lisa Hardi</a> recommended rose oil to me as it's nurturing and a heart-healer, and it is one of my favourite smells. It probably reminds me of carefree summers and the old roses in my childhood garden. The scent is so warming, sweet, and comforting.<br />
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However, there was a gradual change over the next week. The sweet scent that filled the room became more sour. The roses were decaying, and the hot weather was intensifying this. Cut flowers expend a lot of energy trying to stay alive, and scented flowers require more energy and consequently have a shorter life. But I took comfort from them, these physical reminders of that heartbreaking day. I should have thrown the roses out and just kept the daisy-like feverfew, but I didn't want to. I wanted to keep the roses as long as possible, and I don't know how to explain why, but I felt secure when I smelled the decaying flowers each morning. The only comparison I can make is with <i>The Bell Jar</i>, when Esther wears the same borrowed blouse and skirt for weeks and describes the unwashed smell as "sour but friendly". (I'm not in Esther-ville though, don't worry.)<br />
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One day I'd been weeding in the afternoon heat, and as I sat indoors resting afterwards, I wondered what the terrible smell was. I thought it was my clothes after kneeling on the ground and handling earth and weeds. Then I realised it was the flowers, and it was definitely time to say goodbye to them.<br />
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I took photos of them before I threw them with the garden waste. I tried to get a dusky effect in the evening light with a few photos, but I didn't really know what I was doing.<br />
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Last year, I took photos of gently wilting White O'Hara roses with ballet pinks and shared them with Helen - I didn't associate her with pink, but always associated her with ballet. And ballet with her.<br />
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Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-19027764621295861742018-05-22T20:58:00.001+01:002018-05-22T21:14:31.957+01:00Little Dancer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Following on from Friday morning's <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/the-girl-upstairs.html" target="_blank">The Girl Upstairs</a> post, here is the second half of Helen's story. The part I really don't want to write.<br />
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I didn't manage to write on Friday evening. I went round to Helen's parents after work and sat talking to her mother Anne at the same table where my friend had been eating her lunch the last time I saw her. It was bittersweet - it's so nice to talk to and listen to someone who loved Helen so much, but I wish with my whole heart that it was under different circumstances (Helen working abroad for a while or something nice like that). While I was there, Paul's mother dropped round with a plant for Anne and they had a chat in the garden. It was good to see how caring and supportive their neighbours are. My mood dropped badly on Saturday. I eventually did some gardening, which helped. Even weeding, which I'm not keen on usually. And I took my sister out and tried to soothe her when she had a meltdown later.<br />
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I found the photo above on Sunday when I started writing this - it was taken at the flower market cafe when Helen and I went there after she got engaged, and Helen had chosen colour cards to show which blues and yellows she liked the best. The blue called "Never Grow Up" breaks my heart a little now, because she didn't grow up much after that. She'll never be more than thirty-nine years old. But I like the names of some of the other cards: "Moment of Grace", because grace was a word used to describe her at the funeral; "Frites" because she studied French and loved France; "Cornflower Meadow" because she suddenly texted me after our visit to the flower market and asked if she could have cornflowers for her wedding. There were also cornflowers in the bouquet she modelled in the lavender field. And "English Primrose" is lovely because primroses symbolise childhood. I often think that primroses might be the perfect flower to give for Mother's Day. Primrose was the name of the little sister in <i>The Hunger Games</i>, and we saw the first and last films together at the Bromley Empire, both of us feeling pretty miserable as we stepped out into the evening darkness after the last film.<br />
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My engagement card to Helen and Nick is just underneath the colour cards in the photo. It had this quote by Einstein: "Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity." I had never known her to be so wildly in love or so happy.<br />
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There are dates which stand out - her birthday, the day she told me she was engaged, her wedding day, Christmas Eve. And then the day she died and her funeral day. 16 March 2017 also stands out for me. I knew she was in hospital by this point because her mother had told me, but I hoped that she would be home and on the mend in time for her first wedding anniversary. I had a job interview at a secondary school that morning and I took a photo of the cherry blossom while I waited outside. The cherry blossom had been in flower when Helen told me she was engaged two years before. It was blossoming again when she died and its symbolism - impermanence - has never been more disdainful to me.<br />
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I got the job as a school counsellor straight away, and I was looking forward to Helen getting better and being able to tell her and talk to her about working in a school - she had been a secondary school teacher for years. We'd had different careers, so I thought: how lovely - now we have something in common. I had asked Anne a few days before if I could drop round on the evening of the 16th when she got home from visiting the hospital, and she'd said yes. But when I got home from the job interview, I got a message telling me that Helen had been diagnosed with cancer that day.<br />
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I'm stalling now. I don't know what to say about this. What is there to say? She hadn't even been married a year. She had been suffering for a long time, and had gone through several tests, but cancer wasn't detected earlier. And now she was told she had secondary cancer and they didn't know the primary source. She was told she could expect to live another 18 months, with treatment. She had an ileostomy, so all of a sudden her diet was restricted and she had to get into a routine of using a stoma bag. It would be months until she would really talk to me about what she went through, and she would describe the shock of experiencing one horror after another and having no time to process what had happened. On her first wedding anniversary, instead of going out for a romantic celebration with her husband, she had her first chemotherapy treatment. I've said these words out loud, but seeing them written down somehow reiterates how relentlessly cruel life was to her. And again, talking to her much later, it was hard not to feel angry and confused - there is so much in the news about what we should be doing and not doing to reduce our risk of cancer, but Helen was a young woman who ate healthily, exercised regularly, never smoked, and hardly drank alcohol. It's hard, even now, to accept what happened to her.<br />
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As a friend, it's hard to grieve. I feel like I don't have the right to be this upset, because I'm not her family (although she feels like family). I feel like I keep losing people my age, and without meaning to sound self-pitying, it's hard each time because I think: why them and not me? I don't mean to sound as rubbish as I probably do, and I'm not talking about trading places exactly, but I mean how is it that fate decided that this particular 38-year-old woman who had just started her married life should be the next person to get cancer? At one point I know I said something along these lines to Anne and immediately wished I hadn't. I can't remember what she said back to me, but it was incredibly kind. And as a mother, she wanted to trade places more than I could ever imagine.<br />
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For the next year, Helen would embrace life as much as she could, but her illness never seemed to give her a break. She would experience so many losses because of the cancer. One of them was losing the chance to have children - she had wanted children for as long as I can remember. She was upset when she made plans with family or friends and had to cancel them, she was fed up of not being able to eat the healthy things she used to love because of the stoma and how it made it difficult when she was going out for a meal (she couldn't have fruit or vegetable skins or seeds, or dried fruit, or nuts or seeds, or anything high in fibre), and she felt more ill, tired, and in pain than she'd let on. She had side effects from treatment which meant her hands were always cold and she had to wear gloves when taking things out of the fridge, and she got neuropathy. She couldn't go to dance classes anymore, and she couldn't wear the beautiful dance clothes that she used to. As someone who'd wanted to be a dancer since she was a little girl, this loss must have been devastating for her. She talked about this once to me, in her understated way: "I'll never wear those clothes again." She shrugged her shoulders and looked away, and I sat there knowing I couldn't say or do anything to make it better. She asked me what would it feel like when she died. I wish I knew the exact answer, I thought. And I thought, how the hell have we got here, where we're having this conversation? We were two teenagers working on Sundays for pocket money and studying for our A-levels. One of our first conversations was: "Who do you prefer, Oasis or Blur?" Twenty-two years later, we're talking about what it will physically feel like when she dies within the next year. It's just so wrong.<br />
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Having said all that, there were some nice moments in the last year. She went away to Blenheim Palace and Bath with her husband, she went on trips to the theatre with her friends, her husband, and her parents, she organised and ran a Macmillan coffee morning with her mother, and she went Christmas shopping with her nieces in Bluewater. I am lucky to have some wonderful memories of her from the last year: the first time I had tea with her in a cafe after she was diagnosed and her gorgeous smile as she sat across from me; watching her father's DVD of <i>Breakfast at Tiffany's </i>with her because she'd never seen it before, and giving her a hug goodbye after she walked with me to the train station; the last time she made me cups of tea, setting out the table beautifully as she always did, and both of crying as we talked; watching Emma Rice's last production at The Globe with her and chatting to an Australian girl who asked us about our friendship; our last Christmas Eve in Bromley and the last time she handed me a Christmas card and gift. Even our text conversations earlier this year. One morning she wanted to check I was ok because I'd had a difficult day at work, and I thought wow - with everything she was going through, she still managed to be concerned about me.<br />
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Helen died at home, which was where she wanted to be, looked after by her mother and husband in her parents' house. It's an incredible kindness for a family to look after their loved one in their last days at home. I don't remember everything Anne said when she phoned me later that morning to tell me the news, but I will never forget the devastating sound she made at the end of the call. It was the cry of someone who had just had their insides ripped out.<br />
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Helen's funeral was a couple of weeks later. In a case of awful timing, I had booked my first holiday abroad in years, to France of all places, and I had the unfamiliar problem of not being able to collect and condition the flowers myself. I placed the order with the lovely guys at <a href="http://www.cjlove.co.uk/" target="_blank">C. J. Love</a> before I went away and got out all the buckets and tools, and my hardworking father picked the flowers up, prepared and conditioned them according to the instructions I'd left, and cut flowers and foliage from the garden as well.<br />
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It was a strange time to go away. Five days before Helen died, my disabled sister had been in a fire. Her care home - where I had visited her just 36 hours before - had a fire in the early hours of the morning, and the residents were evacuated. One resident died, which is horrifically sad. It was a hell of a shock to wake up to, and I've never hugged my little sister as often or as tightly as I have since the fire. But it's made it more difficult to grieve - the days I am struggling the most and just want to be alone are inevitably the days my sister's having meltdowns and needing my support. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just giving her a hug and a tissue if she's crying, but it's often taking the physical brunt of her anger and frustration and constantly trying to calm her down and keep her safe, and clean up the mess she makes when she's angry. All of this is hard anyway, but especially tough when you're feeling particularly fragile. But what can you do? You get on with it.<br />
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I'm not religious, but while I was away I found myself walking up the hill to the old part of town where there is a Hollywood-style Cannes sign next to a church. In a strange moment of synchronicity, I couldn't go into the church straight away because there was a funeral just finishing. So I sat on a bench outside and checked my phone - Anne had just emailed me to tell me to enjoy my holiday in Helen's beloved France and to try not to be sad. I went into the church and lit two candles - one for my sister and one for Helen. I don't pray. I can't pray. But lighting candles feels like I'm doing something when I can't do anything. I just sat down in the church and thought about both of them for a while.<br />
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I came back to a smoggy London heatwave and just missed Anne who had dropped off some white roses and gysophila to use for her posy, and some leylandii from her garden. White roses are a symbol of love but can also mean silence. Gypsophila, one of the flowers Helen pointed out in our walk around the flower market, represents everlasting love. When Anne offered cuttings from her garden, I was grateful for the leylandii - cypress is a symbol of mourning, and it seemed appropriate that this symbol should come from Helen's parents' home where she had spent her last ten days and where her absence is felt so profoundly. I included it in the coffin spray and used it as a collar for the posy from Helen's parents.<br />
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I had ordered the same yellow Catalina roses that we used for the wedding flowers, and scented Beatrice and White O'Hara roses. Beatrice is a new variety from <a href="https://uk.davidaustin.com/the-collection/" target="_blank">David Austin Roses</a>, and the yellow-peachy colour was beautiful and they smelt lovely.<br />
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There was white and purple lilac from the garden - I used both in the coffin spray and the scented white lilac in the posy for Helen's eldest niece. Lilac means first emotions of love in the language of flowers, and I remember Helen gushing with love when she first had a niece. (Of course she gushed over her second niece, too.) White lilac in particular symbolises youthful innocence.<br />
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I got the forget-me-nots that Helen had wanted for her wedding and I'd been unable to source back then. Anne was keen to include them this time because of their meaning - we won't forget Helen. I included feverfew which means warmth. The flowers are like daisies, which in turn represent innocence, and Helen was childlike and innocent to many of the people who loved her. Clematis means mental beauty in the language of flowers, and Helen was intelligent, thoughtful, curious, and creative (she constantly denied being creative, but I disagreed with her - she choreographed dance!).<br />
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I used Solomon's Seal, which I've only ever used before when I did the flowers at the Garden Museum. It means wisdom. I got cornflowers, which Helen had liked so much and which symbolise delicacy. Bouvardia symbolises enthusiasm, which seemed perfect for Helen - someone who was so excited about the things she did, whether it was dancing or the book she was currently reading. Guelder rose is so pretty and the gentle green flowers somehow feel like a bridge between the flowers and the foliage. I didn't choose it for its meaning, but it means winter or age in the language of flowers. Helen was born in the winter and suffered from the cold spring we had this year, but the sun shone warmly during her last days and there was a double rainbow on the day she died.<br />
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I used rosemary for remembrance, eucalyptus for protection, and apple mint from the garden for warmth. I also used olive for the first time - it is famously a sign of peace. I often use euonymus for greening up, because its bulkiness is good for covering up mechanics, although the stems have a tendency to snap if you're not careful.<br />
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There was a coffin spray from her husband, who had been so joyful marrying Helen two years before. I think being so rushed for time meant I didn't have as much space to be sad. I would catch myself tearing up, upset at the thought of these flowers lying on top of the coffin that was going to hold her delicate body, or re-remembering she had died. I kept forgetting, and even while I was waiting to get the plane home I picked up my phone to text her something funny I'd noticed, but then realised I couldn't. Doing the flowers, I kept wondering what she would think, but then remembered that she wouldn't see them. That was hard. Since I first studied floristry, I have given her flowers so many times. I couldn't believe this was the last time, and that she wouldn't see them. I remember meeting her for coffee in Bromley before I had my job interview at the Garden Museum, and I was carrying a big bouquet. As we said goodbye, I gave her the bouquet - I thought it was obvious it was for her. She was surprised because she thought I was taking it to my interview to demonstrate my floristry skills. I loved giving her flowers. It's one of the things I'm going to miss doing now she's gone. One of her dear friends, who kindly gave me lifts and much-needed hugs on the day of the funeral, told me how she used to choose flowers to give Helen. It was lovely to hear about someone else's relationship with Helen, how they met, and what they would miss about her. We walked around the garden of the hotel that day and saw forget-me-nots flowering, which was comforting.<br />
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Anne asked for a posy from her and Helen's father, and two posies from Helen's nieces. I made these on the night before the funeral, and in the morning I was about to add flowers to the coffin spray when I saw the three posies. They looked like bouquets for a wedding and I cried because I was working in the same room where I'd done Helen and Nick's wedding flowers two years before, and I couldn't believe Helen wasn't here now. I listened to the soundtrack of a French film we loved, and added the tiny, fragile forget-me-nots to the coffin spray. Forget-me-nots are my favourite flower, but I'd never shed tears using them before. I wish I'd had more time to make everything look better. I had to hurry because I needed to deliver the flowers to the funeral director in time and get ready for the funeral. I also wanted to drop the leftover flowers off at the hotel where the reception would be held. Anne told me I didn't need to, but there were so many flowers left, it seemed like the best thing to do. Maybe I misjudged that.<br />
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As I left Helen's flowers with the others that people had sent her, the funeral director gently said to me, "Don't worry. We'll look after them." I thanked him and left, and stopped holding my tears in. I wanted to say, "I don't mind about the flowers so much, but will you look after her?"<br />
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I think I'm going to stop now. I've written so much already, and if I start writing about the funeral itself I don't think I'll ever stop. And I guess part of me doesn't want to stop. So maybe I'll come back and write some more another day.<br />
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There are articles by Cancer Research <a href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/coping/dying-with-cancer" target="_blank">here </a>about preparing to die if you or someone you love has cancer.<br />
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The Samaritans is free to call at any time from the UK or ROI on 116123. You can find them <a href="https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Finally, I recommend <i>Carrying the Elephant</i> by Michael Rosen for anyone grieving, but especially for parents. It's a collection of prose poems written after Michael's 18-year-old son Eddie died of meningococcal septicaemia. Along with making yourself eat and drink even when you don't feel like it, resting even if you have trouble sleeping, and getting some fresh air when you feel like hibernating, the poems are bereavement first aid for me.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-23725788370545293392018-05-18T07:27:00.002+01:002018-05-18T07:27:22.820+01:00The girl upstairs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Two years ago, I did the flowers for a dear friend's wedding. We met when we finished our GCSEs in the middle of the 1990s. We'd started working at the local Boots which had just started opening on Sundays because of a change in trading laws...that itself feels like a lifetime ago.<br />
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(On a tangent - there's a nice paragraph in Nick Hornby's book <i>High Fidelity</i> when he writes about how Sundays are rubbish because everything's closed, even in the city. That felt so pertinent when the book came out, but there must be whole generation who would read it now and wonder what Nick was talking about.)<br />
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Helen and I didn't talk to each other until we'd been working there a few weeks and our mutual friend Paul introduced us. Paul and I worked downstairs in the shop, where there were electrical goods, the photography department, a kitchen section, and greeting cards. Helen worked upstairs where there was make up, toiletries, and the pharmacy. I always thought upstairs was where the cool girls worked. Paul and Helen would get a lift home after work most weeks - they had known each other since they were little and their mothers were friends, having their babies in hospital at the same time, and eventually living on the same road. At that time, Helen and I were both so shy and unconfident, I don't think we would have introduced ourselves when we happened to have the same lunch break. So I am utterly grateful to Paul for introducing us one lunchtime. Helen and I were still working at Boots after Paul and some of the other Sunday workers had left. The photo above was taken on our last day there, before we went our separate ways to university. We'd occasionally work together during the holidays after that.<br />
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I want to write about our entire friendship, but that would be a novel's worth. Over the next twenty years there were so many lovely moments. She sat next to me the first time I had my hair cut in a salon. I don't think either of us realised how long it would take, and the hair stylist was bemused, but we happily chatted away and I expect we drank tea - we drank a lot of tea. I went to Brighton to see her ballet dance in a fashion show and I was so excited when she stepped out and did her solo, looking so quiet and beautiful. We swapped clothes when we used to be the same size, and we both unknowingly bought the same French Connection dress in different colours. We saw film after film at the Curzon Mayfair and the Bromley Empire, and occasionally at the French Institute. We saw ballets at Sadler's Wells, and it was always nicer to see a ballet with her, because she understood dance so deeply. She gushed over her little nieces, who she loved to pieces. She modelled for me in a lavender field, showing her graceful dance moves and her stunning blue eyes - there are posts <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/500-days-of-summer-day-1.html" target="_blank">here </a>and <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/500-days-of-summer-day-2.html" target="_blank">here</a>. We used to meet most years on Christmas Eve, and I've written about that <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/christmas-eve.html" target="_blank">here</a>. I have other memories, which perhaps don't sound so lovely, but which add to her depth and have strengthened my love for her - taking turns falling out, usually because one of us had a new boyfriend and the other felt left out, crying in cafes because we we were unhappy in love or work or life, ranting and laughing about things that made us angry. She was the first person to contact me when my ex and I cancelled our wedding, and I can remember her kind, thoughtful words. I can hear her randomly breaking out into song when I used to stay over at her first flat, and I can see her beautiful blue eyes and her stillness when she cried.<br />
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And then she stopped crying about her love life because she'd met someone at the school where she worked who made her utterly happy.<br />
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On 12 April 2015, the last time I cooked her dinner, we were sat in the kitchen and suddenly she said, "Shamini, will you do my wedding flowers?" That's how she told me she was engaged. For the next hour or so, I got out my old wedding magazines and floristry magazines and she could barely contain her excitement while we looked at them. A few weeks later, we met at Vauxhall station and walked over to the old, New Covent Garden Market where I took photos of the flowers she liked - which was almost everything white, yellow, or blue. She was like a kid in a sweet shop. We sat down in the cafe after a while and looked through the photos on my phone, trying to narrow them down, but I don't think we did very well.<br />
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The following year, I spent Easter weekend with a friend from my floristry course, preparing Helen and Nick's wedding flowers. Some flowers I couldn't get - forget-me-nots were difficult to get and narcissi and bluebells had shot up in price as it was Easter weekend. I managed to cut a few from the garden, but that was all. But there were ranunculus that mean "You are radiant with charms", huge yellow spray roses called Catalina, white roses and tulips for love, two kinds of myrtle for marriage, ivy for fidelity, delphiniums for lightness, and there were even early cornflowers which Helen had asked for. They symbolise delicacy. There was lemon-scented waxflower and bubblegum-scented muscari, and tiny spires of Thlaspi "Green Bell".<br />
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There was loads to do - twenty pew ends, ten tablecentres, a dozen buttonholes or corsages, a cake topper, a long tablecentre, a heart for the church door (which would be moved to the reception venue, along with the pew ends), petals for the flower girls, two bridesmaid bouquets and Helen's bouquet. But we listened to the radio, caught up on the time since we left college, I told him stories about Helen, and we had a really nice time. But I kept getting the bridal bouquet wrong - I must have untied it and started again three times. My friend kindly told me I was overthinking it because I wanted it to be perfect for her. In the end, I wasn't completely happy with it, but Helen came up to me in the wedding reception and told me it was exactly how she imagined.<br />
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In the morning of the wedding, I listened to the radio while I wired flowers for the buttonholes, ribboned the bouquets, and made the cake topper. It was just before 4am and there was a call in and people were talking about what time they set their alarms on their mobile phone. Some of the answers were so random - "3.30, 3.40, 3.50, 4.30" - I remember laughing. How long ago that feels now.<br />
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I went to the venue and laid out the tablecentres. It was wonderful to get a preview of the work Helen and Nick and their families had put into decorating it. It was beautiful and the tables were themed on their road trip around France.<br />
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I didn't cry until the end of the reception, but I felt a bit choked up when I saw the lovingly hand-written place cards.<br />
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I dropped the bouquets and buttonholes off at Helen's parents' house. I forgot her photographer friend Dawn would be there, and I hid behind the bridesmaids' bouquets as she tried to snap us. I have that photo now and I treasure it - the doorway I've walked through so many times and Helen laughing and looking so joyful.<br />
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I then had to go to the church and tie up the twenty pew ends to the pews and put up the heart on the door.<br />
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Then there was the usual florist dash to get ready for the actual event.<br />
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I wrote a taster post <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/an-easter-taster.html" target="_blank">here </a>with the intention of writing a longer post later. I started and deleted the longer post so many times. I'm furiously kicking myself for not just posting something earlier, however incomplete.<br />
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At the end of the night, I got a lift home with Paul's parents - the boy who had introduced us all those years before. It was surreal and incredible, chatting to them in the car. I felt so glad Helen and I had stayed friends for so long and so privileged to be part of Helen and Nick's happy day.<br />
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The gorgeous photos below are by Helen's photographer and dancer friend, <a href="http://www.lovemissd.co.uk/about" target="_blank">Dawn</a>. There is another post to follow this, which I really don't want to write, but I'll try to do it after work today. None of us would have guessed that two years after these joyful photos were taken, we would be going to the same church for Helen's funeral. And now I'm crying again.<br />
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Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-76285501223765893792018-03-01T20:50:00.000+00:002018-03-01T20:50:47.124+00:00Snowed in, lion around<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm sure Arctic countries find the British response to snow bemusing. In Scotland, drivers were stuck on a motorway for fifteen hours, while my commute into London Bridge yesterday took four times longer than usual because of cancelled trains and - this was new to me - trains that couldn't move because their doors had frozen.<div>
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Today is World Book Day, and some parents might have felt their effort spent on costumes was wasted after the schools closed because of the weather. But I hope the children still enjoyed wearing their costumes at home. I had a day off work and I stayed indoors and started rereading <i>Gone Girl</i>. Although a lot of it is set in warm weather, there's a key scene in a snow storm.</div>
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But the books that I think of the most when I think of the snow are <i>The Snowman</i> (which also reminds me of Christmas), <i>Love Story</i> (which I've mentioned on a <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/barrett-like-poet.html" target="_blank">previous World Book Day</a>), and <i>The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe</i>. </div>
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My wonderful primary school teacher, Helen Baxter, read the C. S. Lewis novel to us over I don't know how many weeks. I probably had books read to me as a toddler, but once I could read to myself I rarely had stories read to me at home. So story time at school was incredibly special to me. And whatever I now think about the message of the book about the four children and their trips to Narnia, I have a strong affection for the novel because I remember the first time I heard those words spoken. </div>
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If you're someone who reads children's books to children, I hope you know what a nourishing thing it is you're doing for them.</div>
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<i>Every moment the patches of green grew bigger and the patches of snow grew smaller. Every moment more and more of the trees shook off their robes of snow. Soon, wherever you looked, instead of white shapes you saw the dark green of firs or the black prickly branches of bare oaks and beeches and elms. Then the mist turned from white to gold and presently cleared away altogether. Shafts of delicious sunlight struck down on to the forest floor and overhead you could see a blue sky between the tree tops. </i></div>
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<i>Soon there were more wonderful things happening. Coming suddenly round a corner into a glade of silver birch trees Edmund saw the ground covered in all directions with little yellow flowers- celandines. The noise of water grew louder. Presently they actually crossed a stream. Beyond it they found snowdrops growing.</i></div>
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<b><i>The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, </i>C. S. Lewis</b></div>
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Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-47155225457393119042017-12-24T11:20:00.001+00:002017-12-24T11:20:26.410+00:00Christmas EveI woke up at 4am today. Of course, having a day off means I wake up early anyway! But it's Christmas Eve, so I'm happy. I had some panettone and tea and watched the end of the Hollyoaks omnibus. Then I read <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-42426094" target="_blank">this beautiful article</a> by one of my favourite people on Twitter, Ian McMillan. It's about why he prefers Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. Although my memories are different from his (I'm not quite old enough to remember Apollo 8), I agree that the magic of Christmas is in today.<br />
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So I'll be meeting my lovely friend in our usual cafe this afternoon. We usually meet on Christmas Eve apart from a few years when illness or travel have got in the way. We must have spent our first Christmas Eve together in 1995 when we first started working on Sundays at Boots in Bromley, and Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday that year. I remember making a bet with someone that I would say "Happy Christmas" to every single customer I served, and I did. I'm not sure I would have been so perky if I'd worked in the shop full time and been subjected to the same Christmas CD all throughout December!<br />
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We usually swap presents today, but this year I wanted to make her up an advent calendar, so she got hers early. I enjoyed planning what to put in each drawer, but then as I stuffed them, I saw there was a 25 as well. I think I ended up swapping days 24 and 25 so she would get the best treat on Christmas morning.<br />
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Have a lovely Christmas!<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-22860447444888314242017-12-24T10:58:00.003+00:002017-12-24T10:58:58.767+00:00The Walking Dead gingerbread hospital<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's been five years since my first and only attempt to make a gingerbread house. I had enough gingerbread that time to make <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/jack-and-ginger.html" target="_blank">two small houses</a> - one for my close friend who I nearly always meet for a drink on Christmas Eve, and one for my sister.<br />
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This year a different friend had to cancel her 40th birthday party because her little boy was ill in hospital. She said she felt like Daryl from <i>The Walking Dead</i> when he was trapped in the Sanctuary and forced to listen to <i>Easy Street</i> over and over - because another family in the same ward kept playing <i>Three Little Kittens</i> to soothe their poorly girl.<br />
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Once her boy was feeling better and her girl was off school for the holidays (and I was on holiday from one of my jobs, working at a school), we planned to meet up for a belated birthday/early Christmas lunch. I had an idea of making a gingerbread hospital (like the one <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJG1FNhBVvc" target="_blank">Rick wakes up in during the first episode</a>) on the outside that is the Sanctuary on the inside.<br />
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As ever, my ideas are usually better in theory than in practice, but hey - it kind of worked and my friend seemed to get what it was. Although the figure inside which was meant to be her as Daryl needed some definition for the arms and folded legs - she thought it was a handbag. Whoops.<br />
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You might be able to spot the record player, the character Jesus (who would have had brown hair if I had brown icing), Lucille, and a random star that looks more like a spider's web.<br />
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What was impressive to me is that I managed to carry it on two crowded trains to her flat without it collapsing. Royal icing is an amazing invention! (No, I don't make my own, as my Great British Bake Off book recommended. Gingerbread buildings take long enough to make without whisking egg whites as well.)<br />
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And if you like torturing yourself, here's a 30-minute loop of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE9xOAzsWn4" target="_blank">Easy Street</a>.Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-67143772452949367042017-06-23T22:08:00.001+01:002017-06-24T09:12:03.330+01:00On National Pink Day: A funeral for a friend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I don't know where to begin with this one, but I must write it today, even if I can't write it as well or thoroughly as I'd like to. Apologies in advance for the clumsy nature of my writing in this post, and most of the photos are at the end if this post is too long/upsetting to read and you just want to see pretty photos.<br />
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The last few posts here have been about loss and that's no accident - losses or pre-losses have been a significant factor in my life for the last year. It's one reason I haven't blogged much.<br />
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When I told my friends I was doing a floristry diploma back in 2011, a few got excited and said I could do their wedding flowers if they got married. Others got excited and said I could do their funeral flowers. I remember those conversations, because I wasn't excited at all by the idea - I didn't want to think about my friends dying and I didn't enjoy doing funeral flowers anyway. But that was a long time ago - I've since finished my therapy degree, worked for three years as a voluntary bereavement counsellor at St Christopher's Hospice, and processed <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/on-suicide-bereavement-and-being-good.html" target="_blank">my own bereavements</a> from long ago. I've also come to - I can't think of the right word. Not "enjoy" exactly, but I've become much more comfortable with doing flowers to do with loss, and have found beauty and love and human connections through that work.<br />
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And so I have done wedding flowers for a few friends, birthday and anniversary flowers for others, but no funerals for friends - until this week.<br />
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Vicky came into my life a few months after my partner and I called off our wedding. I was in a state of not-quite denial at the time - constantly doing new things and meeting new people and not wanting to sit with my pain because I worried if I sat with it too long, I would fall apart and be unable to piece myself together.<br />
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I was at the <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/kent-pop-up-shop-for-bromley-mind.html" target="_blank">Depressed Cake Shop</a> in Sundridge Park in August 2013 - and I've just remembered that it was only 100m up the road from the flat where I lived with my (ex) partner. I was there all day, and Vicky turned up in the middle of the day. All I can remember about her that day was how friendly she was, how she seemed like she knew me already, how many photos she took, and her nails were painted pink and blue. I wish I had photos of her from the day but I don't.<br />
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We became firm friends at once, and although the shop was supposed to be about fundraising and awareness, it was also the place that brought two women who were often crippled by depression (and anxiety) together. She was a troubled sleeper like me, and we would often write crap to each other on our night-time Facebook posts or text at odd hours. And, like in maths where two negatives make a positive, our mental ill-health seemed to cancel each other's out, and we would feel so comfortable and often joyful with each other. I told her father recently (he encouraged me to write this post today) that being friends with Vicky in my late thirties was like having a childhood friend to go shopping with in the 1980s - we never went anywhere especially exciting, but we both liked pretty, kitsch, weird things, we had a sweet tooth, our favourite colour was pink, and with her I felt the closest I felt to being a little kid and getting excited about pick 'n' mix and Easter Eggs and Adam and the Ants records in Woolworths. The one time Vicky and I went out for my birthday, last autumn, we asked for colouring-in posters and crayons and we sat in Giraffe eating our dinner and colouring in monkeys and elephants (and lamenting that there was no pink crayon).<br />
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Only four months after we met in 2013, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After initially being told she would make a full recovery within a year, she was then told that actually she had secondary breast cancer - that's what the pain in her shoulder was - and at the age of thirty she suddenly had to get her head around the idea that her life expectancy was only another 5-10 years. That turned out to be an optimistic prognosis. I don't want to write about her cancer now because there is SO much to say, but I will just say that her attitude and her kindness and generosity of spirit during the last three and a half years are beyond incredible. She remained a support to me, with my disabled sister, with my mental health, with my lack of self-esteem and confidence, with my other loved ones with cancer, even while she was so ill herself. She never wanted to die, until right at the end, when she was in so much agony and the brain metastases, radiotherapy and steroids had left her in a terrible state. She shared every medical update with her friends and family on Facebook and sometimes in her <a href="http://16-32-64.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">exquisitely-written blog</a>, and so we were able to support her (and each other) as much as possible. Because of this, many of us connected during her last five weeks in St Christopher's Hospice, and continued to do so after she died there three weeks ago.<br />
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During one visit to the hospice, I sat in the room while Vicky slept, and I talked to her mother. Her mother told me that Vicky had told her she wanted me to do a coffin spray for her. I was choked by this - Vicky and I had never talked about funeral flowers and I had no idea she wanted me to do hers. She gave me a free hand as well, which was - as ever - a sign of her love, trust and generosity to the people she cared about.<br />
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I'm so tired now, I can barely write...but I want to try to explain why I chose the flowers I did.<br />
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Vicky had asked me to source striped roses before, and I used some in the bouquet and posy I did for her 33rd birthday. I ordered "Angry Bird" white and red striped roses for her funeral flowers, but they were unavailable, so I had "Frou Frou" pink and red striped roses instead.<br />
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I wanted lots of beautiful roses for her because she loved them and they're a symbol of love and grace, so I ordered "Charity" David Austin roses because of their scent, unusual appearance with the bright green stamen inside, and the name - Vicky was the embodiment of charity in the biblical sense, and apart from the coffin spray she didn't want any flowers but rather donations to St Christopher's and to cancer charities. It was also a thank you to the hospice that cared for her over three years but especially at the end.<br />
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I also ordered "Tess" David Austin roses, because they are named after Tess of the d'Urbervilles who's one of my favourite fictional heroes - so loving and tenacious. They're not especially scented, but they are such a gorgeous, sexy dark red, which is a colour I associate with Vicky even though I don't think I ever saw her wear it.<br />
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There were bright pink "Dr Alexander Fleming" peonies because she was so appreciative of medical research and because peonies are symbolic of a few things, including anger, and I am so angry she got this horrible illness and died so young. There were pale "Shirley Temple" peonies because of her playful, child-like side.<br />
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I did order "Karma Choc" dahlias (which look like and smell of chocolate) and bright "Labyrinth" dahlias (because she liked David Bowie, a "fellow cancer patient" as she called him, and was gutted when he died), but that bloody heatwave pretty much killed the dahlias, despite some great advice on keeping them cool and hydrated from Sara at <a href="http://myflowerpatch.co.uk/" target="_blank">My Flower Patch</a> (it was at her flower patch last year that I smelled the chocolate-scented dahlias for the first time). I snuck in a few not-too-shabby chocolate dahlias so Vicky could have one last chocolate fix, and I used a few buds of Labyrinth which had lasted better than the main flowers. Dahlias symbolise dignity amongst other things.<br />
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There was jasmine from the garden, which started flowering the day after she died. It symbolises attachment and amiability.<br />
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There was also ivy, which is sign of love and fidelity, magnolia (more dignity), eucalyptus for protection, fern for sincerity, rosemary for remembrance, and mint for protection and warmth of emotions.<br />
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It is British Flowers Week, so I bought lots of flowers from <a href="http://www.newcoventgardenmarket.com/users/zest-flowers" target="_blank">Zest </a>on Monday, including achillea which the Victorians called "a cure for a broken heart", astilbe, and brodiaea, as well as giant alliums and scented dill. The last two were a tribute to one of Vicky's wonderful sisters, who organised the funeral (pink hearse and pink cupcakes and all) and who grows organic vegetables. There was also pale pink malope, which I've grown from seed for the first time. It was also Zest where I ordered her roses, peonies and dahlias.</div>
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It was an honour and a privilege to do this for my friend and I am so glad she let me. I listened to Nirvana and Radiohead and Joy Division while I worked in a dark garage. It was hard at times - I suddenly started crying when I had to use a measuring tape and long stems of rosemary to measure out the size I would be working to, realising that I was measuring my dead friend's body. It was horrible. This was a flipping world away from doing wedding flowers for a friend.<br />
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I need to finish now, but not before sharing a few links.<br />
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Firstly, the funeral directors <a href="http://varleyandvarley.co.uk/" target="_blank">Varley and Varley </a>who were so personal, intuitive, and sensitive. Clayton Varley is an exceptional man.<br />
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Secondly, <a href="http://www.stchristophers.org.uk/" target="_blank">St Christopher's Hospice</a> - if you have been bereaved of someone who received care there, you can request bereavement counselling if you would like. You can also help with fundraising or become a volunteer as I was up until a month ago. It is a lovely place to work, as well as an amazing place to receive care - Vicky and I would sometimes have lunch together when her outpatient appointments and my supervision meetings were on the same day.<br />
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And finally, the <a href="http://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us" target="_blank">Samaritans </a>on 116 123, because cancer, death, depression, all of it is a shit, and if you need to talk to someone, they are there.<br />
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Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-52839299156954041252017-06-12T22:59:00.001+01:002017-06-12T22:59:13.035+01:00Love and loss with flowers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Mother's Day feels like so long ago now - but it was only a few months ago. <div>
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The alternative flowers workshop went well. I had rosemary and forget-me-nots for remembrance, mint for warmth of feeling and protection, ranunculus which says "You are radiant with charms" according to the Victorians. And French lavender, just because it smells beautiful.</div>
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There were people who'd lost their mother and people who'd lost their child, but everyone connected and shared their stories. I went down to get more tea after we'd been chatting for an hour and before we started the floristry, but when I came back up, everyone had got stuck in and started making posies. There was flower-swapping and jar-swapping, and beautiful, scented posies were made for keeping and others were made to lay in memory. It was heartbreakingly sad at times, but it was also wonderful. The talking, the connecting, the kindness, and the grounding qualities of flowers - all of these things did their bit.</div>
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If you would like support with the loss of a child, Child Bereavement UK have resources <a href="https://childbereavementuk.org/">here</a>.</div>
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For other bereavements, you can contact Cruse <a href="https://www.cruse.org.uk/">here</a>.</div>
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Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-78743284085620456622017-03-07T15:15:00.001+00:002017-03-07T15:17:15.409+00:00If you find Mother's Day difficult: alternative workshop on 25 March<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I did my floristry diploma, we were taught about the importance of certain dates in the calendar - the most significant being Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter, and Christmas. For another module, we were taught how to sensitively take an order for funeral flowers. We didn't really put them together, and it's only because of personal losses in the last few years (my own and my friends') and my work as a bereavement counsellor that I've seen how the two are connected.<br />
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I have <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/never-mind-valentines-here-are-flowers.html">mixed feelings</a> about Valentine's Day, and I still wish it was used as a day to celebrate all kinds of love rather than solely a day for couples to remind themselves that they're a couple.<br />
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I've seen how Mother's Day can be upsetting for people - whose mothers or children have died, or whose mothers or children are ill or disabled, or who are estranged from some of their family. It could be that someone has a difficult relationship with their mother or child for all kinds of reasons. It could be that a woman wants to have children but can't. It could be that a woman chooses not to have children but gets messages that she's less of a woman for it. Last year, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/for-the-record_us_57855586e4b03fc3ee4e626f">Jennifer Aniston wrote</a> about the scrutiny she comes under for her maternal status, amongst other things.<br />
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It's easy to suggest that someone just ignores Mothering Sunday and the messages that are implied with it, but unless you're a hermit, it's near-impossible to ignore Mother's Day in Britain. Adverts and articles will pop up on television, newspapers and websites, the shops (that includes florists - sorry) will do their damnedest to make you remember, and even if you want to just go out for the day, there might be themed lunches and afternoon teas in cafes and restaurants.<br />
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So, with some encouragement from other therapists and flowery friends (waves to Sara at <a href="http://myflowerpatch.co.uk/">My Flower Patch</a> who is running a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MyFlowerPatch/photos/a.202010806658953.1073741831.194307460762621/601920043334692/?type=3&theater">Spring Workshop</a> in Wiltshire and donates to local charity <a href="http://www.finlayfoundation.co.uk/">The Finlay Foundation</a>), I am running an alternative workshop the day before Mother's Day.<br />
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<li>In this workshop, we'll get to talk to each other about what makes Mother's Day difficult.</li>
<li>We'll do some mindful exercises with flowers.</li>
<li>Then we'll make a scented posy that people can keep for themselves, give as a gift, or leave as a memorial.</li>
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The workshop will be held at <a href="http://www.nealsyardremedies.com/store?name=sevenoaks-store">Neal's Yard Remedies in Sevenoaks</a> on Saturday 25 March from 1.15-3pm. You can book your place by visiting the shop at 134 Sevenoaks High Street or phoning the shop on 01732 456402.<br />
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The cost is £30 and this includes the workshop, a posy to take away, and a £5 donation to the charity Child Bereavement UK.<br />
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This year, Child Bereavement UK has launched a campaign called <a href="http://childbereavementuk.org/get-involved/family-friendly-events/mums/">Make for Mum</a> to encourage bereaved people to remember their mothers or mothers to remember their children. The charity supports children and parents who are bereaved or facing bereavement through their national helpline; one-to-one, couple, family and group support; and training for professionals and schools.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-90947519107315057012017-03-04T11:39:00.000+00:002017-03-04T11:39:26.423+00:00Review of the year: Winter 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Only a few weeks to go before the days start getting longer again. I can't wait - apart from Christmas, I'm not a fan of dark mornings and evenings.<br />
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Winter flowers included 28 candelabras for an event at Middle Temple Hall celebrating Shakespeare (which chimed in nicely with the #floristfilms hashtag: 28 Candelabras Later). It's where the first recorded performance of <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/photograph-of-middle-temple-hall-the-location-for-the-first-recorded-performance-of-twelfth-night"><i>Twelfth Night</i></a> took place in 1602, so it was a real privilege to do the flowers for this event. The flowers were not so much flowers, as trailing ivy, which hopefully created an ethereal, <i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i> feel to the hall.<br />
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There were scented arrangements of pine, spruce (aka blue pine), eucalyptus, stocks, and lavender, along with pussy willow, alstromeria, silver brunia, silver kochia, and white hypericum for Neal's Yard Remedies in Sevenoaks.<br />
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The scent of the foliage, herbs, and flowers nicely complimented the Christmassy smells of cinnamon, clove and mandarin that filled the shop. Pussy willow has an irresistible, tactile quality, and it lasts for weeks and weeks, which is wonderful for a shop display.<br />
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Oh, and there was white, glittery skimmia. The glitter was barely noticeable in the arrangements, but it was all over my workspace and buckets and took weeks to finally clear!<br />
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There were satsumas for Father Christmas.<br />
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And on Boxing Day, after eating leftover Quorn roast (I used <a href="https://www.nigella.com/recipes/ginger-glazed-ham">Nigella's ginger-glazed ham recipe</a>), I used my leftover flowers to try to create some modern ikebana arrangements. Ikebana is not the most obvious style for Christmas flowers, but one of my lovely Canadian cousins sent me <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1738987.Keiko_s_Ikebana">Keiko's Ikebana</a> book to challenge my Western-wild floristry style, and I thought I'd give it a go. I failed my natural line arrangement practical at college, along with the rest of my class - this Japanese style of floristry did not come naturally to any of us (we scraped passes on our resits though!). A lovely tutor from my diploma course, <a href="http://www.neilbainfloristry.com/">Neil Bain</a>, encouraged me to share my efforts on Twitter - and his generous response to my photos was reassuring.<br />
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The bowl arrangement is not-quite moribana (which means "piled on") and the vase arrangement is not-quite nageire (which means "thrown in"). It looks deceptively simple in the book, but it is such a challenge if it's not your natural style. But hey - it's good to be challenged sometimes.<br />
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Now there's just over a month until Easter, I can think about clearing out my Easter leftovers with some spring ikebana.<br />
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I'll finish with some gratuitous Christmas baking photos...even though it's <i>completely </i>the wrong weather and time of year for eggnog cupcakes and mince pies! It was the first time I'd made eggnog from scratch, and like many homemade things, it was time-consuming but worth the effort. You also get to drink the leftover eggnog, which is a nice bonus.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-91925775781660485082017-03-02T17:54:00.002+00:002021-09-04T14:10:07.360+01:00The primroses were over<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>“The primroses were over. Towards the edge of the wood, where the ground became open </b><b>and sloped down to an old fence and a brambly ditch beyond, only a few fading patches </b><b>of pale yellow still showed among the dog's mercury and oak-tree roots. On the other side </b><b>of the fence, the upper part of the field was full of rabbit-holes. In places the grass </b><b>was gone altogether and everywhere there were clusters of dry droppings, through </b><b>which nothing but the ragwort </b><b>would grow.”</b></div>
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Richard Adams, <i>Watership Down</i></div>
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I have been terrible at blogging the past year, but I always do a post for World Book Day – so I want to keep up with tradition. It’s nice to look back and see the books I chose before. 2012 was <i><a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/golden-country.html">Nineteen Eighteen-Four</a></i> (and how many times has that book been mentioned in the last year?), 2013 was <a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/frankly-my-dear.html"><i>Gone with the Wind</i>,</a> 2014 was Elizabeth Barrett’s <i><a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/barrett-like-poet.html">Sonnets from the Portuguese</a></i>, 2015 was <i><a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-past-is-foreign-country.html">The Go-Between</a></i>, and last year was <i><a href="http://flowersbyshamini.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/falling-right-through-earth-for-alice.html">Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</a></i>.<br />
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A couple of days after Christmas last year, I heard the news that Richard Adams had died on Christmas Eve. He was 96. At the bottom of this post is my copy of <i>Watership Down</i>, which my mother bought me in John Lewis on Oxford Street, back in the 1980s when its children's department included books. Richard was the only person I really wanted to write a fan letter to…but I never knew what to say, so I didn't. I know he had loads of fan mail, so mine wouldn't have made much difference to him, but I felt a huge pang of regret on the 27th of December. 96 is a fantastic age to live to, but death is loss no matter what age, and I think the little girl in me imagined he was as immortal as Father Christmas. I had read interviews with him after his 90th birthday and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/04/richard-adams-watership-down-interview">a couple of years ago</a>, and he was as sharp and eloquent as ever.<br />
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I read <i>Watership Down</i> after seeing the 1978 animated film. I fell in love with both. As cute as he was, I was never a fan of Thumper from <i>Bambi</i>; sarcastic rabbits like Bugs Bunny and intelligent, kickass rabbits like Bigwig and Hyzenthlay were more my scene. There was also something Rick and Ilsa from Casablanca about the last two. Now when I watch <i>The Walking Dead</i>, so much of that epic, apocalyptic story reminds me of <i>Watership Down</i> – the constant vigilance against danger, being cautious but hopeful when meeting new characters, the deaths and losses, and the blood. I used to hide behind the curtains the first few times I watched the final showdown between General Woundwort and the dog in the film. Similarly, I used to hide behind my hands when I first watched the zombie scenes in the TV show, before I got used to them.<br />
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“When you’re little…you don’t distinguish between fiction and reality,” Richard said a few years ago. “It’s all reality. And thank goodness for that. I do not believe in talking down to children. Readers like to be upset, excited and bowled over. I can remember weeping when I was little at upsetting things that were read to me, but fortunately my mother and father were wise enough to keep going.”<br />
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His daughter Juliet urged him to write down the epic rabbit story he’d told her and her sister during long car journeys, and eventually he started writing every evening. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/richard-adams-forever-animated-by-the-life-of-animals-1974572.html">‘Asked if he enjoyed writing it, his response is quick and pithy. “No, I hated it. To be quite frank, writing is bloody hard work. But I did enjoy that I had the guts to persevere with it.”’</a><br />
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I am so glad he did.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-62331843172991415072017-02-08T16:21:00.000+00:002017-03-03T10:35:15.290+00:00Review of the year: Autumn 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Autumn was full of bright, late summer flowers, huge dahlias, sunflowers and other cheerful yellows. There were also gorgeous scents and classic colours, trips to David Austin Roses (another post is needed for that trip) and Blooming Green.<br />
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A trip to Blooming Green to pick a bucket or two of flowers deserves a separate post...but given my track record of late, it's probably best to include a few photos here in case the other post doesn't materialise. I also bought dahlias from a local allotment that had an open day. If you're curious about the wellies, they were a celebratory purchase from Joules the day before - I'd gone shopping with another bereavement counsellor after we had both passed our counselling courses, and he persuades me to buy the bright floral wellies I obviously preferred (rather than the more subdued print that I thought I *ought* to buy).<br />
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I had a few new, second-hand containers that I'd bought from Eliza Wade (a local florist shop), and this was a perfect excuse to trial them. Along with milk bottles, a milk churn from Mayfield Lavender, and my chicken vase!<br />
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As it was the end of the summer flowering season, I wanted to get more Rosebie Morton scented, British roses while I still could.<br />
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The antique pink roses were set off by sedum from the garden, flowering mint, British pinks in white and raspberry pink, and stunning blue oxypetalum.<br />
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I am so lucky to live near <a href="http://www.newcoventgardenmarket.com/flowers">New Covent Garden Market</a> - I get to buy beautiful and scented flowers like these. Rosebie Morton in Hampshire sells a range of scented roses to Zest in the late spring to early autumn. When I take them back on the train, the scent fills the carriage. The pinks have that wonderful clove scent that supermarket carnations are sadly lacking. The flowering mint and oxypetalum (aka tweedia) are imported - the mint smells incredible and the oxypetalum is such a beautiful and delicate flower. But if you've sensitive skin like me, wear gloves when using it, as the beautiful blue flower releases a horrible sap when stems and leaves are cut. When I asked Luke at Zest what the blue flower was called, at first I thought he said, "Ozymandias", the character out of Watchmen. He didn't.<br />
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I also did flowers for a pure white wedding - not my usual style, but Laura's idea of fluffy clouds made of hydrangeas and gypsophila was so beautiful and made for a striking monochomatic theme at her wedding reception. She also wanted white, blue and yellow bouquets for the mothers of the bride and groom.<br />
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As an aside, I have been in serious denial about the flower market's upcoming move, but as the date draws closer, I am going to have to say a little goodbye soon. (When I was buying scented roses at Dennis Edwards yesterday, I bumped into Lauren, one of the lovely students from my floristry diploma. It's funny that it's taken so many years for me to bump into another ex-student there...and soon "there" will be someone else.) Followed by a hello, of course, as the market is just moving further up the road. You can read about the new market <a href="http://brand.newcoventgardenmarket.com/">here</a>.<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-49557060605188916772017-01-20T09:36:00.002+00:002017-01-20T09:36:14.517+00:00My Fair Lady<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I wrote the date this morning, I thought of one thing: this is the day Audrey Hepburn died.<br />
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I was a secondary schoolkid and it was the first time I noticed the date of someone famous dying. I had seen My Fair Lady a dozen times and I loved the setting (the old Covent Garden flower market!), the humour, and the stunning outfits. (I wasn't discerning enough to mind her dodgy Cockney accent at that age.)<br />
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She later presented a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6ArElsvCUA">documentary</a> about gardens, and gardens were something that gave her pleasure and comfort. It's reflected in the flower world: She has a <a href="http://www.daylilies.org/DaylilyDB/detail.php?id=150942&name=Audrey%20Hepburn">daylily </a>named after her, a hybrid tulip named after her - and this short piece of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaQKOPp09V0">film</a> from 1990 shows her love and her sense of humour during the dedication ceremony. She also has a <a href="http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.386">hybrid tea rose</a> named after her.<br />
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The photo at the top is taken from this <a href="https://www.unicef.org/people/people_audrey_hepburn.html">UNICEF</a> article - she became a Goodwill Ambassador in 1989, and some of my last memories of her while she was alive are footage of her working for UNICEF. I saw that side of her years before I saw her Holly Golightly.<br />
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<b>"I can testify to what UNICEF means to children, because I was among those who received food and medical relief right after World War II".</b></div>
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I don't know what Audrey would have made of the news in America today. I'm not as nice as she was, but I've always wanted to be a good person, and I do try to help others when I'm able to. I'll work at the hospice today and I'll donate to a foodbank when I do my food shopping. And I'll look after myself as well.<br />
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<b>"Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it's at the end of your arm. As you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others."</b></div>
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Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-61432513400321891112017-01-13T10:34:00.001+00:002017-01-13T10:40:55.186+00:00Review of the year: Summer 2016It started to snow heavily on my way home yesterday evening, and it's snowing again now - just as I need to leave for work. So obviously, there's no better time to remind ourselves of last summer!<br />
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This post should have another subheading: Barbara Cartland flowers. There's a <i>lot </i>of pink.<br />
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The pinky-red roses in the first few photos are 'Kate' <a href="http://www.davidaustin.com/">David Austin</a> roses, and the classic dark red roses towards the end are <a href="http://www.rosebiemorton.com/">Rosebie Morton</a> British-grown roses - they filled the train carriage with their incredible scent on my way back from New Covent Garden Market. (On a side note, how beautiful is the name Rosebie?)<br />
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And the last four photos are from my wonderful visit to <a href="http://myflowerpatch.co.uk/">My Flower Patch</a>.<br />
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Back to the snow: wrap up warm and drive/walk carefully!<br />
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<br />Shaminihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04829307612576180625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6350277847748660668.post-83216625471081248232017-01-02T18:58:00.001+00:002017-01-13T10:35:26.784+00:00Review of the year: Winter/Spring 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Happy new year! </div>
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I put my back out yesterday, which wasn't the best start to 2017. And my depression has taken it out of me lately. But my back's on the mend, and hopefully my mood will lift as the days get longer. Today I was looking through this Liz and Claire Cowling <a href="http://www.thrivefloristry.com/Books/Our-Own-Titles/Straight-From-The-Heart--Sympathy-Collection.html?cPath=1_3">book </a>for inspiration, and their beautiful words and pictures gave me the gentle kick I needed.</div>
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So here is the first part of a quick photo review of the year. No politics and no misery here; just beauty and hope. Here's wishing you and your loved ones lots of good health, peace and joy this year.</div>
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