Pink lemonade and chocolate mint

I've been going to lots of classes over the last few months - flamenco, ballet, swing (lots of fun, would like to do more classes in future), singing, tap dancing (far too technical for me and both are much harder than they appear to be), and different types of acting (which is loads of fun).

After my improvisation class last week, we went to a cafe for food and a chat. When we left, I asked the staff if I could take our empty bottles - pink lemonade and citron (isn't that just 'lemon' in French?!) and the staff at Bills' kindly wrapped the bottles up for me.

There wasn't a lot in full flower in the garden, but I filled the lemonade bottles and some mini milk bottles with rose buds, scabious, flowering orange thyme and chocolate mint. I made a lovely cup of chocolate mint tea with the leaves below the water line, and even that looked pretty in my William Morris 'Daisy' mug that my friend Sarah gave me as a 'cheer up' present this year.

I took these photos on the same day that I took the overlit photos of the first roses, and I think these came out much better!

I like the promise of summer that these image evoke - parks, wooden benches, lemonade and tea, and sweet-smelling roses and herbs.

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

I used to steadfastly stick to a 'no Christmas talk before December' rule – I wanted the Christmas season to feel short and special, and that wasn’t going to happen if there were mince pies and carols two months before. Now that I’ve entered the world of floristry, the goal posts have shifted a bit. I made my first Christmas arrangement yesterday. And on Wednesday, when a friend from my floristry course and I hopefully manage to get a pitch at a market, I will have made several more.

For this little table centre, I used fake snow-covered thistles, bright red hypericum berries, beautifully glossy ilex leaves, a little gypsophila, and a few spray carnations that have the marvellous name ‘Mr Rooney’. I had a candle disaster, and ended up using a scented candle that is a little too small for this arrangement. But hopefully my friends, who this is for, will forgive me!

I used a few broken stems of hypericum, a thistle, and some ilex leaves to make myself a buttonhole. I know corsages are meant to be for women and buttonholes for men, but just as I sometimes prefer to wear men’s trainers (they are better for playing football, albeit badly), I also prefer to wear buttonholes. I felt suitably Christmassy wearing this one as I caught up with friends at the beautiful William Morris exhibition at 2 Temple Place today.

And in other news, I got a lovely surprise when I walked around the garden last week. Firstly, there were a couple of very late roses that had blossomed. And secondly, my snowdrops have started shooting. I’ve heard that they rarely flower in their first year, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Let it snowdrop!