I can sing a rainbow

There is a TV programme tonight all about people giving up sugar. I gave up sugar (and a bunch of other things) once for a year and all I can say is: never again. Now I aim for five fruit and veg a day and fit in nice things like cake around them, no food-shaming and less body-shaming, and that seems to make me much happier than I was during the sugar-free year.

So if you are not a fan of sugar, you might want to stop reading now.

Everyone else: here is my first attempt at rainbow cake. I have wanted to make it ever since I tried the gorgeous one from Cloud 9 in Brighton a few years ago.

I made this for my friend at the weekend. The natural colours (purple and blue) came out more muted than the artificial ones, and I am too impatient to do a proper crumb coating of buttercream, wait for it to dry, and then ice properly - but apart from that, I think it worked. It was a basic 2oz of butter, sugar and self-raising flour to 1 egg, and I used 4 eggs. I added vanilla and orange blossom to the cake and the buttercream.

I'm also sharing photos of a polychromatic bouquet I made as a wedding gift for a couple last year, which I haven't got around to sharing here. It was late summer, and there was a mixture of British and imported flowers as well as stuff I'd grown. It smelled amazing.

I can sing a rainbow, too.

Pensiveness and peonies

I did two very special "Sorry you're leaving"/"Good luck" gifts this week. I had planned to use forget-me-nots (for obvious reasons) and cowslips for pensiveness, but couldn't get hold of either. In the end, I used new season Sarah Bernhardt peonies, which start off like this...

Before opening a little...

And eventually look like this when fully open. They smell incredible, and they are so fluffy I just want to stroke them like a rabbit!

There were also cerise stocks, green hypericum berries and lilac freesias from the market.

Mixed up with lots of flowers from the garden: the first white, red and peach garden roses, dainty aquilegia, including the exquisite 'Nora Barlow' from Higgledy Garden (which has finally flowered after I sowed the seeds twenty months ago!), lavender 'Folgate', pittosporum 'Oliver Twist', scented white hesperis (a.k.a. sweet rocket - these are autumn-sown from seeds, which I got at the Hardy Cottage Garden Plants stand at the Wisley show), alliums in purple and white, osteospermum, and delicious-smelling herbs such as lemon verbena.

There was plenty to make two similar-but-different bouquets, in reused glass jars.

They were delivered on the bus, in the much-needed sunshine. They went to two surprised lecturers, who seemed happy with them and didn't need cowslips in order to be thoughtful!

Declarations of love

Valentine's Day has come and gone. There were flowers for eros, storge, agape, and philia, as well as healthy narcissism. There were British tulips, narcissi, hellebores, blossom, and foliage.

Eros (Romantic love)

Red tulips for passionate declarations of love, white iris ("I have a message for you"), white hyacinths for beauty, pink ranunculus ("You are full of charms"), quince blossom for temptation, ivy for fidelity and marriage, and genista for humility.

Agape/Philia/Storge (Platonic love)

Pink tulips for graceful love, white ranunculus ("You are radiant with charms"), freesias for lasting friendship, genista for humility, pink hellebores ("Relieve my anxiety"), and mimosa for sensitivity and sensibility.

Narcissism (Healthy self love)

Paperwhite narcissi for regard, self love and new beginnings, white ranunculus ("You are radiant with charms"), mimosa  for sensitivity and sensibility, and eucalyptus for protection.

I was pleased to have flowers for the Portmeirion Botanic Blue jug I got at Christmas...even if the flowers had to be whipped out of the jug soon after the photo!

Diggin' Design: a sustainable Christmas Fair

The Diggin' Design fair at the Garden Museum bade a gentle goodbye to November, and a Christmassy welcome to December with its mince pies, wrapping paper, and woolly hats. There were so many stalls - I managed to do a quick tour before the fair got busy - with many beautiful things that you can't find on the high street.

The illustrators and designers who created cards, other stationary, and textiles were incredible. I didn't see Liz Temperley, the artist behind Blank Inside, but her friend kindly managed the stall and seemed to do a great job of selling the work! You can see her with Liz's products on the left in the photo below.

The two men at the Supermarche Studio were so friendly and enthusiastic about their work, which was so cool itself, I went back later and bought some London wildlife cards. And Sophie Richardson's pretty teapots will have made wonderful presents for some lucky people! 

There were filo mince pies being baked in the Garden Museum cafe, and carol singers entertaining us in the afternoon. They sang a song that I recognise from Love Story, when Jenny is teaching a choir of children, but I've forgotten the name of it. I had a good view of them from my stall.

I shared a stall with Annie, who works at the museum on different days from me (so we'd never met before). She chatted to me as we sat at our stalls, and she looked ever so peaceful as she knitted for most of the day. I felt like I too should have been industrious and brought work with me!

As for me, it was lovely to promote my flowers, especially as these were all British. There was a lot of surprise that all of the flowers were British, and much smelling of the rosemary, freesias and paperwhites.

I chatted to a lady with a tiny garden who would like to grow cutting flowers - I recommended two Twitter colleagues' books: Georgie Newbury's The Flower Farmer's Year and Louise Curley's The Cut Flower Patch. She bought a posy to take to a dinner she was going to and, in true sustainable style, declined a biodegradable hessian bag in favour of carrying the jar of flowers in her hand.

A little girl visited the stall with her father and shyly asked me how to make "that" (pointing at my favourite handtied). I explained the process, in simple, pidgin toddler style. I like to think she will go off and collect flowers in the spring to make a posy.

The day was made better as I had just received new business cards and stickers from Wendy Bell - the most wonderful designer (in keeping with the design theme of the fair!), who I've worked with in the past and who I can't recommend enough. She's a delight to work with, incredibly intuitive and creative, and got the essence of both my desert island flower (the forget-me-not) and me down to a tee.