A Summer of Urns and Other Stuff
As summer fades into autumn and the hues change, I want somehow to document the colours from this one – Summer 2023; the year of brightness, and urns. I’ve recently been rewatching Stephen Poliakoff’s Summer of Rockets. Mainly because I love the colours. It’s one of those films that’s like viewing a moving painting. Who […]
A Floral Retreat
This year marks ten years since I decided to retreat into a world of flowers. A world that could not be further removed from twenty years of kicking around the criminal courts of Burnley, Blackburn and Preston, carrying to work each day a huge suitcase full of briefs containing tales of human frailty, greed or […]
Balancing buttercups
“Do you like buttercups?”…was my best ice-breaking conversational piece as a shy five year old. Nobody seemed to mind if I thrust a tiny yellow flower under their chin to check if they liked buttercups. They never had the heart to tell me I’d got the question wrong. The 1970’s test for dairy allergies worked […]
What to do with 25 snowdrops in a garden in February
Winter 2023 Winter for the florist can be long, and for some it’s a struggle. This year the media and even the Government warned us it was going to be “tough”. It has been bloody cold. Most florists don’t have much income in January. It takes a while to get your head around the fact […]
A Year in Flowers Part 3 – Autumn into Early Winter
Autumn. Possibly the best season of the year for the flower lover. Some of September was spent in Scotland doing classes at Cambo. With Keeping the Plot just down the coast road, I was able to call a couple of times. There are a few places where I know I will find genuine peace, places […]
A Year in Flowers Part 2 – Summer
The summer of 2022 will be remembered for a long time in the UK; the one with all the heatwaves, and the droughts. Unsurprisingly the hot topic was that of climate change. Here in Yorkshire we are well used to extreme weather, usually in the form of floods, so weeks without rain seemed surreal. Most […]
A Year in Flowers Part 1 – Winter into Spring
Do what you love….is something I’ve mentioned a few times before. So, at the start of 2022, after the hiatus that was 2020-2021, I decided to create a small project, just for me. What do I love? Flowers, grown in gardens, and being able to photograph them. You don’t need me to tell you about […]
Cambo 2022: Queens, Hearts, Angels and Some Grass
“Tell me two things,” I said to anyone capable of listening (as well as looking) as they went through the small opening in the golden sandstone wall that leads into the heart of the garden at Cambo. “How does it make you feel?” and “Have I bigged it up too much?” I was worried this […]
Dutch Masters, the Listening Project and a Load of Balls
I know I’m not alone when I say I’m fascinated by those well known, dark-yet-colourful paintings of flowers dating back to the Dutch Golden Age (between around 1550-1660) done by the likes of Rachel Ruysch and Willem van Aelst. Truth be told it’s not necessarily the flowers in those paintings that have me wide eyed […]
Light, Through a Lens
If you know me well, you know that I’m sensitive to light. Sensitive in a way that means that I have quieter times, maybe in winter, when the lack of light affects the growth of the flowers and where the hours in which to get out the ‘big’ camera are limited. Getting out the camera […]
