Alchemilla for Camilla.

Mr Davey came home from school recently - he will pass his exams eventually, I am sure - and announced that he was organising a visit to the school by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall; he then announced that he had said I would do the flowers for Camilla and her Lady-in-waiting. Oh. Right. Now let me tell you a little story...



Once upon a lifetime ago, Pipany sort of trained as a florist. This was as a back-up plan because she had actually trained in horticulture, but as Pipany was a skinny waif of a gel, it seemed getting work in the world of gardening may be a problem in not so very enlightened Cornwall (it was a long, long time ago), but soon decided that she was not keen on such formal flower arranging and returned to her own tied posies of garden flowers grown by her own not-usually-very-fair hands.



Having learned all about corsages and wreaths, wedding flowers and all manner of funereal crosses and sprays, Pipany then did indeed work in the prettily-scented floristry shops of ye local town (plus ye not so local town now I come to think about it).



The years rolled on until one day Mr Davey announced that he had put Pipany's name forward as the arranger of posies for m'lady Camilla - Ooohhh bum. The thing is, my posies are very informal and full of things like herbs and marigolds, wildly disarrayed sprays of whatever is looking pretty out in the garden. Typically, we are on the in between bit, but there was plenty of golden marjoram, lavender, daisies, hypericum berries, oregano and masses of my trusty alchemilla. I even cut our precious few brodeia - like a small and very dainty agapanthus which lasts brilliantly as a cut flower despite its fragility.



So, there you are and there I am, yet again bemoaning the fact that the photographs I took were hurried and in harsh light which has turned what were really rather pretty and natural tied posies into things of garishness where the soft mauve of brodeia and the gentle lime of my favourite alchemilla are lost only to be replaced by a harsh purple and green which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the original.



Ah well, such is life. The day went well and the flowers didn't fall apart and I made fruit loaf to mark the occasion



and jammed the tayberries



and made a batch of bread rolls to scoff thickly spread with butter and said jam.



Not a bad day, all in all. How was yours? x