With a wedding next summer to plan we’re rapidly being presented with lists and plans by a little red hen from home in France. Next up…

Cider brewing and friends staying over on the farm. I’m favouring the fifties caravan and homemade cakes – but have a hunch this a bit Darling Buds, nay Carry On.

But I do love these…. and as boat life has made us pretty transient maybe we can put one on the wedding list? It’s in one of my favourite colours too. Swoon. O?

To Cider – the farmer is harvesting our apple orchard – the perfect excuse to get designing twee country livingesque labels…maybe a crooked heart and a cat or two?

Like our apples things are falling in to place, my favourite people can come, fireworks are the bees in France and now cider and caravans. Marrying high summer in camping season? We must be Nuts. xxx

xxx

I will never be, but I am rather fond of nasturtiums and their hues so as autumn exhales its fullonness we’re preparing to batten down the hatches with colour.

This time last year the harsh reality of life on a grey canal was setting in. Now, with a captain on board, a quirky clock collection and candy coloured cushions to comfort it’s a different story…but maybe just maybe there’s room for some wallpaper too?

I have a massive crush on these books by Abigail Ahern. Imagine leaping up and dancing fingers across spines of browbeaters – whilst actually reading some naughty friperie?

This stuff is pretty bonsa too…part of Open House week meant we could do some designer snooping. Too much fun.

xxx

Everyone seems to send me florals, I don’t mind but just as I have a drawer full of porcelain cats and feline salt and pepper shakers, it is an acquired taste.

But I do love these prints by Celia Birtwell, once Hockney’s muse – I’ve done flowers for her and she really does have the most exquisite taste. How sweet are the birds?

This week I’m working on colourways for my Gypsy Rose stuff accompanied by some good jazz to beat the blues. Check out this beautiful french take of Lullaby of Birdland by Blossom and her band. Moi, j’aime. Happy tuesday. xxx

In no particular order it’s been a few days of … Tip tappeting, props for a photoshoot, Belladonna and bulbs, fashion week with Kitsune and rasberry mohitos.

Richard Nicoll with cakes and ribbons, a lot of Bryan Ferry lookalikes, obla dah’ing (I like this man he sounds like a cat) and a favourite pair of white brogues.

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Getting tickled by Gypsy Rose Lee – I just ordered one of her books as she’s kind of charmingly silly don’t you think? xxx

I’ve been asked to cage some camelias. Could there be a crueler yet prettier fate?

There are parakeets on the towpath, beautiful fluorescent free green ones…

I think they’ve flown over from the graveyard…maybe we could teach them to chat?

I’ve read up on the subject and it works…but English or French?

Whilst I think of blooms behind bars and get my Henry Higgins hat on have a peek at these adorable vintage illustrations, most definitely on the Christmas list.

xxx

Flowers aside this week I’m really jellybugs as I’m missing Agatha Christie Week…batty Miss Marple, Tommy ‘n Tuppence and Hercule fans en mass, machinating over murder on the English Riviera. It’s too much.

Imagine the clattering lipstick stained teacups over cream teas? The faux moustaches and theme tunes, walking sticks and comedy murder set ups?

I know I know I can be a real snore about Agatha Christie stories, it’s the covers that get me and their dusty book jackets have always held a place in my heart.

They live in crooked half read piles in the cabin, crammed secretly in to in cookbook shelves and can be found a top of O’s record player.

So. I’m peeved to think I won’t be with the hundreds of fans who’ll be tritt trotting around discussing in rich tea whispers whether Roger Ackroyd’s murder was the best ever written or if And Then There Were None was indeed her finest hour.

I personally would have to scamper around her cutting garden snipping at the hydrangea, camellia, magnolia and rhododendron which she so avidly grew…and lament the bad casting of Miss Marple since Joans demise.

I really should be donning white mittens, my best starched floral frock and taking the 4.50 from Paddington …hmm maybe there’s still time?

TBG? …only her best short story ever. xxx

After a weekend of friends, film scripts and the lure of life with flowers on Columbia Road its most definitely feeling like autumn on our blustery boat.

Today it’s grey and leaking through the portholes… but all about making prop umbrellas, teacup raindrops and steering our ship towards a pink palette for winter.

Although I’m not swirling in whirl of leaves and bangers and mash, just yet, canal seasons definitely sneak in early. This means Aggies who dunnits at bed time and high teas with darling Tim at Julies complete, please, with fondant fancies.

Cats shivering through portholes, french films with cringeroonie subtitles in the cabin, the smell of a wood burner, plans for bonfire night and talk of New Years Eve…

I know Ines would approve too (Caroline’s great interior blog tip) and as well as that it’s making sure shop windows look cozy and hydrangeas are dried in time for a leafy afternoon tea here.

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Of course as only boat dwellers know so well the spider hoovering and wearing of woolly tights (tree trunk fluorescent fuscia please) gets underway too.

xxx

Flowers for a bride and the case of the missing vases …must be the weekend.

A great deal of this sort of shizzle is played on our boat of an evening. Blossom Dearie, Jelly Roll Morton, Dr Buzzard and Minnie Riperton all take their turn to bend the needle and though I do try to get a bit of Rock Hudson in it rarely occurs.

Still, O, did once hang out with Cliff Richard in a Flower shop so tho I may not trust him to condition a rose he can spin the discs anytime.

With Mabel loaded to the rafters with roses, I give you September songs and a promise that this weekend I’ll be dispelling the romantic myths of living on a boat… spiders, bogatoo’s and cold mornings here we come. xxx

I’m now, like my cat Madame Cholet entering an old dotage…one hundred rambles about flowers and this and that have passed on this blog.

I frown about whether it’s a load of flim flam and takatooka, if I’m punctuating properly, but weigh up as I cautiously scrawl that it’s a good place to store my thoughts on all things floral and jobs I’ve loved or loathed.

The yearned for frock, a prized posy, what lovely things we’ve cooked, the obligatory song title, some old fashioned show offing, a Youtube vid, an ode to a 50’s starlet all seem to follow a formula. I admit it’s a road well trodden by my flower shop shoes. I shall ramble on falling in puddles I’m sure, but in the meantime…

One hundred things – what’s not to love? xxx

Dancing, flowers, cats, recipe books, interiors, black pearls, Agatha Christie, San Pellegrino, Arnold, A cat named ziggy, peonies, boats, stripey tops, clocks, old florals, wonky china, flapjacks, Count Basie, mannequins, garden roses, Rigby and Peller, lavender jellies, fountain pens, ranunculas, mary janes, chaise longues, jugs, my friends, Columbo, fagin gloves, coloured pencils, Blossom Dearie, Hydrangeas, chantily lace and cakestands.

Margaret Rutherford, old glass, Grandma, jelly moulds, ticking, buckets, stephanosis, fashion, a rabbit called Cecil, Jazz, Apricot jam with ginger, pots of tea, sweetpeas, Satin ballet shoes, Daphne Du Maurier, dahlias, strawberry sandwiches, good luck brooches, mint, treehouses, Paris, honeysuckle, blue skies, spring, lily of the valley, cream satin, birds, Honfleur, sheep, Debussy, Ealing comedies, blackcurrant icelollies, Amaryllis, Eames, Murder she Wrote, Wysteria, table presents, Constance Spry, our towpath family, ribbon, Gigi, Jackson 5, Mme Cho, free flower market entry, St Johns, my friend Tim’s piccies, lie down shoes, Brigitte Bardot, music sheets, candlelight, O’s tracks, black treacle and bonfire night.

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With O off deejaying in Barcelona I was boat alone this weekend and found myself bucketed up with hydrangeas, hypericum and seedum set designing locally.

Another 20th Century Theatre event and with autumn on the menu it was a tartan, twinkles and tamarind affair. Any excuse for a foliage love-in and I jump in my cab.

Once home to Olivier – don’t you just love his De Winter ? It is full of ghosts, funny passageways and so many sets of stairs I thought I was in an Escher painting.

My first autumn weekend in London. Once lit, the sight of kilts a plenty dancing around my September plumage was just the ticket.

Happy Birthday Scotty.

xxx