Unruly

Being an honours graduate of the Gumby School of Flower Arranging, I confess to having struggled to get these tulips to stay in any semblance of reasonable order. It didn't help when I dropped my back board on top of the vase, if I'm honest.

Back in my Lancashire childhood, the keenly creative WI ladies who were my surrogate "aunties" used to scrunch up fine chicken wire and place it in a container like this as a supporting framework for unruly stems; I thought it looked like an awful faff, but I've always been a bit sketchy. If I'd paid more attention to their diligent industry I might by now be the kind of person who can whip up a fabulous flower arrangement with one hand and an exquisite cake with the other, while demijohns of gently fermenting, multi-coloured potions bubble enticingly on every available flat surface. I swear those women could make wine out of absolutely anything - though I almost never saw them actually drink any of their concoctions, and to my huge frustration I wasn't allowed to either.

Back to the tulips though - a sign that spring's only just around the corner, don't you think? Or maybe the corner after that.