I haven't posted much lately, although I do have some flowery photos to share.
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.
I didn't share this photo here before, but I will now - it's the one Dawn Selway 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!
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.
Today I visited Clayton at Varley and Varley's 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.
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.
