Summer Entertaining

It’s SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!!!

I love Sundays, but why do they go so quickly and why, why, why can’t there be more Sundays in a week? I get to lie in, eat breakfast sitting down, leave the village, head to town, do some shopping, tinker in the garden, think up new ‘jobs‘ for John to do and dream of what I would do if I ever won the lottery.

No matter how much I enjoy running and working in the Flower Shop, there’s no respite. I have wonderful staff, but there are things that only I can to do. From the first flower delivery at 7am on Monday morning dressing wedding venues late into Friday evening and taking down displays from churches late on Saturday afternoons and working on funeral tributes ready for Monday mornings.

During the Autumn, Winter and early Spring months Sunday is the only day I can enjoy being outside, in daylight. So during the Summer I try and spend as much time as possible in the GARDEN with family and friends or on my own with books, chucks and ducks .

This week, there have been days where I just wanted to shut the shop, go home and stare at the wall. When I feel like this John knows not to ask me anything, just to feed me and leave me looking into space, wondering why I put myself through all this. But there have been days where I was forced into being sociable…which to be honest doesn’t take much.

I have been working on a couple of ‘Garden Projects‘ over the Summer. nb: Projects are things I dream up, which John has to agree to, has to do overtime to pay for and has to endure in the hope of making me happy.

When the last flock of ‘chucks n’ ducks‘ were killed by Mr Fox, I decided to build the Fort Knox of Chicken pens, something a little like a high security prison, but surrounded by lovely plants, trees and flowers…Chicken Utopia!

Chicken Utopia was completed this weekend with the introduction of three more designer hens to add to the new flock and to celebrate I had some friends and family around mid-week to dine al fresco in my new Italian terrace, complete with potted Olive trees, stone statues, rustic candle holders and fairy lights among the grape vines.

There’s also the English Cottage Garden, the French Lavender Path and the Italian (again) Sunken Garden.