I was feeling a bit low today and bemoaning all the things I couldn't do out here in France that were so easy in England. The list started with buying flowers for the house. I always loved having fresh flowers on a table, somewhere in the house but that, seemingly simple thing. is unbelievably difficult here - in this region of France. Florists are few and far between and WICKEDLY expensive, so the only real place to buy flowers is the supermarket. Not cheap, not guaranteed to last a week like Tesco, Sainsbury and M&S, and usually more expensive than their equivalent in the UK. However, I bit the bullet today and bought a bunch of roses (9 in the bunch, oddly enough), just to cheer me up. Here they are on my kitchen table...
I really prefer less formal flowers, like blowsy old-fashioned roses, delphiniums and larkspur and garden pinks and other old favourites with a beautiful scent, but I have to settle for what I can get and. individually, the blooms are rather stunning, though with no scent at all.
The weather, however, IS more like England today, with a mist over the mountains, a gusty wind and light rain...
...but the gardens and countryside need the rain, as regions of the Limousin, particularly the Creuse, are importing hay to counteract the poor harvest caused by the dry Spring. They may just have time to harvest another crop for the winter, if the weather doesn't get too hot.
2 comments:
I know just what you mean - the French can do really fabulous bouquets "pour cadeau" but a bunch of garden flowers they can't or don't. Sometimes you find bunches of cottage flowers in street markets - I remember one old lady who came every week with little posies of whatever was available even in the depths of winter she found something for Saturday in St Junien but on the whole these kinds of flowers are like hens' teeth.
Glad you are finally getting some rain - the farmers certainly need it as hay is worth its weight in gold just now according to my friend.
I so agree.Natural arrangements are impossible to find, they turn out huge bouquets of strangled flowers and enormous leaves.
Wild flowers are better!
Post a Comment