Flowers for the Queen
Up at the nursery, a new blog character, Mr Billenbenn, is a picture of concentration as he prepares the compost for the hanging baskets. He sprinkles a layer of fertiliser in, shapes the soil to fill the gaps and sits back to admire his handiwork. A swallow swoops into the large, dark shed, settles on the beam overhead and the two of them have a conversation. 'You'm cheerful today,' Mr Billenbenn says. And then he looks at me. 'Cor, he's a lovely little thing, inner?' Out in the greenhouse, hanging basket after hanging basket is suspended from the ceiling. A label is attached to each one, the grander the name the bigger the basket. It's like turkeys in the butcher's shop at Christmas. You can judge the calibre of the customer by the size. This year, there is a run on red, white and blue surfinias as the whole nation goes Diamond Jubile crazy. I um and ah about this contrived colour scheme, preferring to have a 'white' theme to reflect th...