Pizza

Probably no greater foodstuff. Well maybe there is, I once ate fillet steak with a piece of foie gras on top. It came with chips.

1 kg 00 flour or strong bread flour
1 tablespoon of sea salt
2 1/2 teaspoons of dried yeast
650 ml of warm water
4 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of sugar


Sieve together the flour and salt, i know its a pain, sieving a kilo of flour is messy, but it makes a difference. Also make sure the salt is superfine, and don't put all the flour into your sieve at once. Just saying.

In a very very large bowl or just right there on the worktop, pile it all up and make a well.
Add the yeast to the water and sugar and oil. Allow to stand for a bit. Make sure the yeast is in date. Just saying.
Pour the liquid into the well, and start to incorporate, and then knead until boredom is reached.
Place in a bowl to rise for 1 hour.

Knock back, ponder why you bothered to let it rise if you are just going to knock the air right out of it again. It's science.

Divide into 8 pieces = 8 pizza bases.

Stretch out by hand, debate whether you might like to be a pizzaiola in Napoli, then remember you watched La Camorra last night and think better of it.

Top with smashed roast tomato and pecorino.
Cook in an unpreheated oven at 200.
Turn up oven to 250 to speed up cooking.
Run into garden to stop exuberant hound from jumping over a 6ft fence.
Return to slightly burnt pizza.

Try again the next night with Ricotta, asparagus and lemon peel.

My pizzas are oblong because i don't seem to have a giant baking sheet.

I have more dough, topping suggestions if you please.

My so called life

On Saturday morning i stood outside the registry office clutching nothing but a bridal bouquet. I was there before it opened, for a good 10 minutes i must have looked like an either overly eager or jilted bride. I know this because many people shouted out of their car windows

"I'll marry you love"

I was just delivering, to a bride who didn't know she was getting it, a present from a friend. I got chatting to the lovely registrar a fellow F1 fan, she could write a book too.

Pizza recipe coming up later.

I have had a sneak peek of the new William Cecil hotel, it looks very very different to how it did in it's previous incarnation. Their tag line is "Quirky Luxury", obvs. i am moving in when it opens on the 22nd. Even if it's just for the fact that 2 of the function rooms are called Darcy and Bennett, and they have good lampshades. I shall be up there quite a bit over the next few days, i will take my camera.

This morning many RAF men have exercised their right to the freedom of Stamford, whilst awaiting their arrival an 11 year old policeman told me that there were some senior officers already here

"if middle-aged men float your boat" said he.

Oh darling if only you knew.

and a Spitfire just flew over.

also Rosa Friedland Old Grandma, i don't know who thinks up these names.

and the big jugs are just that, you all have such filthy minds and i adore you for it.

Animal Attraction

We are in chaos, many many things going on, and we appear to have been mistaken for the ark.

Raphael has moved on to warmer climes, and Donatello has just this second come to hang out for a bit. Wise owls with jaunty hats of Monarda are perched proffering advice, and swans are doing what swans do.

The Kudu flutters it's eyelashes as people walk by. It has a mysterious glint in it's eye.

The Hound has had to take on the role of zookeeeper, i have promised him a badge.

Many many things to catch up on, a lone female with a bridal bouquet outside a registry office, a wheel nut that didn't get put in place, a very large batch of pizza dough and big jugs.

I may be climbing on rainbows

The sun has just graced us with his presence, just in time for a wedding.

Not in time for the installation, it rained for that. Obvs.

I remembered to take photographs, so you are getting lots. De rien.

I can feel wedding madness kicking in, you want to eat super foods and drink 2 litres of water, but caffeine in the form of extra shots and Diet Coke and bread are inevitable. We have eaten a whole packet of jaffa cakes, and by we, I mean me.

Bread - climbing on rainbows - you knew there was a link somewhere.

The Hound is exhausted, doing nothing, nada, niente all day is evidently tiring.

Also i haven't done anything with the xanths, because i sold them to a man. He was from out of town, Hampshire to be exact, so this is not an indicator that they will sell again. "Never buy twice" I heard that at an auction once. I am adhering to it.

Have a marvellous weekend, are you working your behind off doing weddings? No? Would you like to? I have another box of jaffa cakes.......

xx

Track 9

One of the messages on our bouquets this week. Ever curious, i asked which album.

You've been on my mind
I grow fonder every day,
lose myself in time just thinking of your face
God only knows why it's taking me so long
to let my doubts go
You're the only one that I want


I don't know why I'm scared, I've been here before
Every feeling, every word, I've imagined it all,
You never know if you never try to forget your past
And simply be mine


I dare you to let me be your, your one and only
Promise I'm worth it to hold in your arms
So come on and give me the chance


To prove that I'm the one who can
Walk that mile
Until the end starts

I know it ain't easy
Giving up your heart
I know it ain't easy
Giving up your heart

Adele Adkins - who knew she had a surname. Song lyrics as love notes are the best.

Also Majolica, tuberose, sexiest flower ever. and gladioli not so sexy, but quite dramatic.

and  Raphael has come to stay for a bit, he eats the leaves off the stocks, not pizza.

Open your eyes

I want so much to open your eyes
'Cause I need you to look into mine

Tell me that you'll open your eyes

Snowpatrol. Who doesn't like a blast of that for a lunchtime.

Sometimes i can be closed minded. Flowers so loathsome and all that. So i am going to endeavour to open my eyes to other things.

I obviously needed to rearrange the shop for the 394th time in order to achieve this new outlook. Or maybe i was just too lazy to push the table back after we had dinner? Whatever.

I have bought shells, are they naff? Should they be in a pot pourri mix from Marks and Spencer circa '83? Is it a bit odd to have shells in a shop that really couldn't be anymore landlocked if it tried? Did you know baby starfish are cute but smell of tripe sticks?

I have also bought Xanths. This is part of the new outlook. I am going to try and do something amazing with them. so far i am just sneering at them, and then i hid them from my sight.

Do you have suggestions for things for me to open my eyes to? Have you discovered that alstro really aren't all that bad? Did you use aqua rose and just die? also Don't say gerbera.

In all this new outlook, I have also been looking at tattoos.

Go your own way

Fleetwood Mac's Rumours has been on all day. In readiness for Sunday.

1. some props i am finding it to hard to part with.
2. One of my favourite roses, Two Faces.
3. Proof that the duck/goose lives on, and that the window is now a greenhouse
4. Love hearts, i am sure they were better printed back in the day.
5. We had a supper, right in the middle of the shop, amongst the flowers and the Goliath beetle, more on that later.
6. Rainbow feet.

and to catch up on the celebrity weddings.

Abbey Clancy - bless her, she tried, but...
Kate Moss - sublime
That girl in Monaco - the most miserable looking bride, dreadful dress, most uncomfortable first kiss ever, hoping she does a runner during the honeymoon.

also, marshmallows are fat free. You're welcome.

We live in a cynical world

Yes I am totally going all Jerry Maguire on you.

When it comes to weddings, those of us that work on actually doing weddings become a little cynical. Sometimes a lot cynical. We don't cry at wedding reports, we don't look at photographs and go all mushy, we eye up the flowers, and ponder the style and workings.

Because we know weddings aren't all roses and rainbows, and we know what goes on behind the scenes, what disasters have been averted, a doubtful groom, a supplier that didn't turn up, things the bride will never know. One day there will be a book.

This week my faith in weddings has been firmly restored. I didn't do the flowers, i wasn't a guest, but the email i have just had from the newlyweds, has had me in tears for hours.

It isn't my tale to tell, but when it is told, i will let you know.


The Ice Queen melteth.

Though I'm barely touching you

I've shivers down my spine
And it feels divine

Days of Thunder

I would love somebody to have this as their first dance.

I have been particularly rubbish at photographing weddings, flat camera batteries, time,rain and other things have conspired against me. I will endeavour to get pro pictures, which will be far better anyway, and a big must try harder for future events.

A few weeks of pink, and a flooded village. The venue for one of the weddings was at Normanton Church Museum. The only thing remaining of a village flooded to make Rutland Water. It now does civil ceremonies. Photo ops a go-go.

Also we have sold a lot of the props, somebody even offered to buy Mr F, who happened to have sat still for a few minutes.

In other news it is the birthday of both The Mother Hen AND The Captain. The same date. Brilliant.

A florist from New Jersey has just been in.

and The Hound has lost .5 of a kilo, although apparement he is still fat.

and after violent protests, I have given the duck/goose a repreive. amazing what people feel strongly about.

I am gripped by the Monaco Royal wedding, i hope she tries to flee again, Prince Albert looks like he would be moody.

As you were.