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This week I have been mainly cooking stir-fry.

Not terribly authentic, but incredibly tasty and warming and comforting.

Anything with a Chinese lady on the bottle works for me, and my wok is old and truly "seasoned" anything you cook in it tastes oriental. Fry the belly pork on a high heat until crispy, remove, drain the fat off and chuck everything else in in order of firmness. replace pork, splash over some sauces.

Fresh water chestnuts have replaced capers as my new obsession.

and King Oyster mushrooms, although when i got to the till these 3 cost me £4.76. Yikes.

All of these things were bought in Morrisons, it has had a makeover, and sells better things than Waitrose now.

They had 7 different varieties of aubergine.

Did you too make thorough use of the extra hour in bed?

Did you see week 2 of the floral coalition? The brief was happiness, Pandora's box if ever there was one, i went shallow.

and much love to all in the Caribbean, the east coast and wherever else the wretched hurricane is headed.

and Curiosity killed the cat

Rooftops

 The shop is in the town of Stamford, the finest stone built town in England.

It's enormously popular with camera carrying tourists, keen to snap the architectural details.

Quite often they stand at the top of the high street and point their cameras in the general direction of the shop. 

for the roof lines

rather than my window displays.

I was going to take a picture of the outside of my shop, but you see that BIG WHITE VAN in the bottom left shot. That's where my shop is.

and all the lights are changing red to green

Take several terracotta pots
take the same number of plants, mini cyclamen, mind your own business, hyacinth bulbs and such like.
Place plant in pot
Line up

If it's for fancy times add a runner and log slices

the log slices almost hide the fact that the runner needs ironing.

I used 19 mini cyclamen and 8 mind your own business.

There would have been 20 mini cyclamen but somebody came in and bought number 20.

I have been working on Christmas things for various magazines, and have spent much of the week covered in glitter

a small child came in "you are all glittery, are you a princess?"

It makes a nice change from being asked if i am a pirate.

also Babylon

Transvision vamp

Lapelman does autumn

 a time for berries, dried lavender, heart shaped cyclamen leaves and hydrangea paniculata from the garden

and ribbon.

and juggling

Heavy metal

I'm bored of pumpkins and gourds now.

I want it to be Christmas in the shop.

I've worked out the re-jigging  purchase of new furniture that will be required

made product and shop decorations

and have my finger poised over the upload images to website button.

Hyacinth bulbs in copper pots have crept in and there may or may not be a herd of reindeer on the shelf above my workbench.

another dog also crept in the other day.

Just for a few hours

The Hound was less than impressed.

Greater than the sum of it's parts

Lotte and I are forming a coalition, like the government, but thankfully without the need to sit opposite Ed Milliband.

it will be in the form of a blog*. Obvs.

but with "actually in real life" things to come next year.

the blog is a photography project, one brief, two florists, two images and will be live tomorrow night

when a link will magically appear in this post.

a demain.

OUR NEW BLOG IS LIVE

THE FLORAL COALITION

first brief was self-portrait.


*you will be pleased to hear Lotte has been put in charge of layout.

Every time I see you, you're buying chickens.

Harvest pale

A wedding reception held at the pub up the road.

Shortest delivery distance of a wedding. Ever. 

The bride brought containers 

and I filled them with roses, and dahlias, and clematis. and berries, and herbage.

We are taking bets on whether i will ever do a wedding that doesn't include majolica.

One for the florists there. 

LE15 to S1

I've been to 2 cities in less than a week, this must be a record.

The Other Miss Pickering and I headed out on a road trip up north to visit The Small Child at university in Sheffield.

En route we did that thing that starts remember when? and ends in fits of giggles. This particular trip focused on the time we lived in a hotel at weekends, chicken kiev from the room service menu, and minibars, and the fact that we took our kitten with us.

and then out for lunch where we reminisced about more things and took a stroll around the city and found a gold post box. Amazing.

Then we came home, and I took The Hound out and contemplated the differences between city and country.

My Grandmother insists that you are either a city person or a country person and you cannot be happy in the other. Is this true? I've been happy in both, but definitely favour the country, maybe I'm just old?

and also hats off to Vanessa Engle for her walking with dogs documentary last night. Twas brilliant.

I would love to make a documentary of the shop, telling the stories behind why people buy flowers.

Also I haven't read the book. Did you?