Sorry to have been away

I have been a lazy blogger recently but hope you will excuse me as I have been so busy with my painting fundraiser (see blog January 10th).

Hard work, but such fun.

I now have 108 paintings, mainly from amateurs (most of whom are beginners - including myself) and they will all be on view at Stourhead gallery 19th - 21st Feb. We are delighted to have had the help of Desmond Shawe-Talyor, Surveyor of the Queen's Paintings, who has chosen 12 to be auctioned at our charity dance, the Paint Ball. I have to confess I do not know Desmond at all but he once taught my best friend, Pip, history of art and she loves him. And since he has given up his time to help Msaada I am now joining the Desmond fan club.

Here is a sneak preview, starting with my daughter Alex's painting (proud mum) called, The Lone Emperor. Alex is at uni studying natural sciences and saw this image on Planet Earth.

It has been wonderful to see the range of subjects that people paint, but most have chosen what is dear to them. I have no doubt that Alex will one day be a zoologist. (For Christmas she asked for a 'chimpanzee chasing hat' to wear in all weathers, as she will be spending the summer in Uganda studying a troop of chimps.)

This painting is called The Promise, and was painted by a young woman called Clare Davenport who is head of Maths at Shaftesbury school. She had been to Rwanda with Msaada, as the charity has helped to link the school with another school there. She wanted to paint an optimistic picture full of hope, but also show that the genocide is not forgotten. The purple of the earring is the colour that is worn by people on genocide remembrance days.

I love the fact that farmer's wife, cook, and all round good woman - Gillie Strang - painted her landscape with a pastry brush. Any one who has visited the Strang's mad, farmhouse kitchen will understand that the chances of her losing the brushes that came with the paints and canvas we gave her were always pretty high!

Mother and daughter, Francie and Beth got all their friends and female relations to kiss their canvases. They wanted to show how women support each other in Rwanda - and in fact all over the world.

Isn't that the truth.

And what did I paint? (or rather copy from a greetings card)

A flower stall of course!

Will you stand still for one second!

I am in Ted Martin's collecting flowers for a workshop I am running in Worcestershire tomorrow. The girls have been in since 6.30am as they have a large event to organise. Even so they have put all my order neatly aside for me - for which I think they definitely deserve croissants and cups of tea. 

Trying to get them to stop still for a photo however is another days work!

(From left to right; Jennifer, Julie, Clare and Sarah) 

The event they are preparing for is all based around white and green, and as I look at the banks of lilies, roses and amaryllis in the shop, I think it is a combination that is hard to beat.

Add in fat bundles of white tulips and I am sold!

A Rainy Day in the Flower Shop

On a dreary, rainy day there is no nicer place to be, in my opinion, than inside a busy flower shop. So for me this is a very good day; it may be slate grey outside but I am in Ted Martin Flowers tucked in a corner with my camera and lights to photograph some shots for my new book. Jennifer and Claire are in working so there is also a constant supply of coffee and conversation. Bliss!

As I am working I tuck away some hyacinths and anemones for later. We are going to supper with friends; Deena and Alan and I think they will make a good gift. We are meeting up with them a bit later than normal to give Alan and our friend Tim time to get back from running a marathon - all part of their training for when they run 6 marathons across the Sahara Desert in 6 days! You have to admire that sort of madness! Especially as they are raising money for Msaada and Cancer Research (Deena lost both parents to cancer within a year of each other). 

(If you would like to support them go on to the Just Giving site and search for Tim Wood or Alan Geal)

After a great day in the shop I head home with a bag full of flower heads (I was photographing something where they needed to be cut short). I definitely do not want to throw the flowers away so I take out a shallow dish, make a lattice out of selotape across the top and slot the short stems in the gaps. It is now happily brightening up my kitchen table.

A Splash of Purple

I am heading off to friends for lunch so decide the only thing to take is a posy of flowers. (I think my friends would be really disappointed if I decided to bring chocolates for a change!) I call into Wild Paeony in Shaftesbury to see how their Christmases went, and because I know they often have small posies made up, for just such an occasion.
The window is filled with stone coloured vases of elegant, aubergine tulips and there are also large, purple anemones dotted around the shop.I choose a posy of hyacinths and narcissi that I think will fill my friends' kitchen (and my car) with a wonderful fragrance.

Painting in the New Year

Rather than adding snowy scenes to my blog I thought I would bring you a bit of sunshine, a blue sea, and of course, some flowers - to say a belated Happy New Year.

I have been busy organising a fundraiser for Msaada and unlike my normal experience of fundraising, this has been a complete joy to do. A really heart warming experience.

I gave out 100 12" square chunky canvasses and paints - mainly to complete amateurs and everyone had to complete a picture by January. Well the response has been amazing!

Most people used acrylics, but some made collages, used oil paints, car spray paint (!), one lady even knitted hers! Here are just a few to give you a tastier of the amazing quality that is coming in. All will be exhibited at First-View, The Gallery at Stourhead from 19th - 21st Feb.

Most will be on sale there and some will be auctioned at a dance - The Paint Ball - which will take place the following week.

One mother and daughter who have taken a canvas each tell me that they wanted to reflect how Rwandan women help each other so have asked their close girlfriends and female relatives to come around and, wearing bright lipsticks, to kiss their canvasses and to sign a message.
How good is that? It made me want to cry.
So, if you are in the area in February, do come to the National Trust at Stourhead and see the pictures - and you can always put in a bid for these gorgeous paintings I have shown above.
1. Morning Sun by Hazel Heritage
2. Praa Sands by Bea Coward
3. A Passion for Flowers by Jane Wood
4. Oriental Lilies by Fiona Browse

Christmas at Ted Martin Flowers

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without going to see everyone at Ted Martin's flower shop. I call in to collect some flowers for my final workshop before Christmas. This is a special workshop as I am helping friends create advent rings for their tables and wreaths for their doors. My friend Deena also wants a special wreath for her parent's grave and feels she would like to make it herself, so I am very pleased to be able to help her to do this.

The weather is bitingly cold but the front of the shop is festive with holly trees, lanterns and wreaths. There are cerise cyclamens and scarlet roses mixed in with anemones and deep bronze chrysanthemums.

The shop is packed to bursting with a new delivery of flowers. Ted tells me that when she arrived this morning she could not actually get into the shop, so many boxes had been delivered from the market.

There are candle arrangements and tree decorations that have been made by the girls in the shop, ready for people to buy. I particularly like the hearts of red wooden beads.

Apart from the flowers for my workshop I have ordered a treat for myself. A box of tall, stately amarylis - they are the most wonderful colour, a deep plum velvet.

No time to stop for a coffee this visit, but I will be back on Christmas Eve when I might bring something a little stronger with me!

The Self Employed Ladies Christmas Lunch

Anyone who works for themselves will know how lonely it feels at Christmas when friends are heading off to their office Christmas parties and you sit around feeling like Norman No Mates. So this year my friend Hilary decided to do something about it and organise a Christmas lunch for those of us who are self employed.

So six ladies head for lunch at the White Lion in Bourton - a real mix of professions; there is Hilary who works in HR, Lucy who sells clothes and also works in TV production, Denise who is a cleaner, Sarah who is a sculptor and me.

As I had been demonstrating Christmas arrangements at Kew the night before I have some spare flowers, so put together a tiny bucket of flowers for each of my friends. I place each of the small buckets in a glass bowl so I can carry them to the lunch - then decide if I pop a candle in the middle I will have a table centre for our table too!

Cafe des Fleurs

Is there a better way to spend a Tuesday than to drive down to Rye in Sussex and visit a gorgeous flower shop that is also a cafe? I don't think so. And the sun shone for me. As Billy Kelly says, if I fell in the docks I would come up dry!

Cafe des Fleurs overlooks one of the fingers of water that push their way into the town of Rye from the sea, and is an enticing mix of flowers and gifts - and of course, cupcakes & coffee. Owner, Lucy Forrester, has read my books and has kindly said she will help me with a new book I am researching.

But first stop a cappuccino amongst the flowers.

It's not everyday you have coffee with six foot teak horse! Lucy says she saw this wooden sculpture at a recent trade show and had to bring it home with her. We discuss whether it would be undignified to hang a wreath of flowers around his neck, or maybe add some Christmassy antlers.

Over coffee we chat about the book idea (more of that closer to the time) and Lucy asks about my book Flower Shops & Friends. In this book I visit 12 beautiful flower shops around the country and as part of getting to know the florists there I ask them to tell me their favourite flowers, food, drink etc.

It is not long before we are discussing what would be on Lucy's list - so here goes.

Favourite flower: Peony (good choice)

Favourite food: Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding

Favourite drink: Vodka

Favourite view: The sea at Camber Sands

Favourite song: Stir it Up by Bob Marley

Favourite fragrance: Scented roses

It is very easy to lose yourself amongst the flowers, gifts and Christmas decorations. I see a pink stripy heart decoration that would be perfect for my daughter Libby, but decide to wait and let her choose herself. It is a tradition that the girls and I each buy a new tree decoration every year. Now our Christmas tree is a record of all the things they have loved as they have grown up. Libby's are mainly pink and involve a lot of sparkle (my budding fashion journalist) and Alex's are mainly animals (my budding zoologist). Funny how things turn out.

Just time to take a photo of an antique bowl of roses and it is time to head home. Sadly not in the car that is now parked outside the shop - but Lucy does send me off with a box of cupcakes tied up with satin ribbon and a rose. All this and a car like that would be greedy!

A Week of Bookshops & Flowers

As we are fast approaching Christmas I had been asked by a number of bookshops and florists to conduct book signings and demonstrations for their Christmas events. So last week was a very busy week,  - but a very happy week, as I was out and about meeting new people, driving around the country with my Mini filled with flowers.

First stop on a cold winter's evening was the Old Hall bookshop in Brackley. This lovely old bookshop is situated in a Georgian house just set back from the Market Square. After demonstrating some Christmas arrangements I was kept busy signing books - including some copies of Love Pink which was written by my daughter Libby (I had been singing her praises during my talk). I explained that I shouldn't really sign them as they were her book, but the ladies of Brackley decided I should sign them 'Libby's mum'!

Next stop was Paperview in Ringwood, a great spot for a book signing as owners Trevor and Barbara are friendly with the florist next door - Patricia Taylor. So I spent the evening talking about books and drinking red wine and Patricia demonstrated flower arrangements and drank white wine. A perfect combination!

The great thing about meeting other florists is that you pick up new ideas. I would never have thought to combine cabbages and peach gerbera like this, but with cones, cinnamon, oranges and a touch of mistletoe I think it looks subtle but still very Christmassy.

Final stop for the week was an old favourite, Stourhead, the National Trust property in Wiltshire. I like to think that at the end of the day I had the most festive display!

Mixing oranges with purple or burgundy has been a favourite theme for me this year.

And even a smart glass arrangement can benefit from a bit of gingerbread!

Book Signing in Farnham

I am back at Patricia Knowles flower shop in Farnham with Emma and Hazel, and what nicer place to be on a cold wintery evening with mulled wine flowing. As the shop wouldn't be able to hold all their guests the boys across the road at Headcase barbers open up their salon for them to use. And very smart it is too with huge mirrors and old fashioned barbers' chairs. The vicar, who has popped in from the rectory next door (the flower shop is on Church Street) reliably informs me that the walls are painted Venetian Red, he recognises it as the same colour as his vestry.

One of the things I love about these evenings (apart from the wine and conversation) is I get to see different flower combinations, ones I would have never thought of. I would never have combined oranges with red roses and orchids as Emma and Hazel have done in this wreath - yet I think it looks wonderful.

As the evening draws to a close we pack all the flowers from the display on the street back into the shop. It has been a great evening, many new faces and one or two old ones, people I hadn't thought to see - which is always a pleasure.

A Great Welcome from the RHS

I arrive at the RHS gardens at Wisley ready to conduct a Christmas flower demonstration for their Plant Centre customers. The staff help me in with all my flowers and manager Nigel fetches me a cup of tea (which it turns out I am too busy to drink). Before I start the demonstration I have a quick wander around to look at all their decorations, gifts and books - quickly falling in love with their reindeer doormats!
As the evening goes on I am kept very busy arranging, talking and answering questions. One lady, who is leafing through my books spots my florist friend Jennifer, and turns to me in amazement. She had known Jennifer forty years ago but they had lost touch, and she had been wondering how to find her again. It is obviously a week for coincidences, as the previous evening I had been running a flower workshop in Cheltenham as a birthday treat for a lady, and one of her friends, Liz, spotted a house she knew in The Flower Shop book. It turns out we have a mutual friend, and further on in the book I was able to show her photographs of her.
Everyone keeps saying it, but it's true - it's a small world.
As a variation on the advent wreath, I place a vase in the centre of my hydrangea and rose hip wreath and add four candles to it.

One of my favourites; a Christmas pudding basin of flowers. Although one lady did ask me, what do I now use for my own Christmas pudding?

(The answer is easy; M&S!)

One final browse around the shop and it is time to go home, although I do spend quite a lot of time lingering over a Father Christmas snow globe. I decide I really am too old for it and don't need it so leave it on the shelf, but I can't help feeling this may have been a mistake!