The Flower Lady's Bouquet

A proper florist comes to Shepshed Market on Fridays with class flowers. Not your garage on the corner bunches. Her bouquets are designer. The one I got today was discounted to £20 which is actually a very good price when you see the quality of the stems.

It needed a photograph. Len helped me extend my background with a second piece of black velvet and gamely stood with a white card to reflect a little light on to the flowers.

I'd had to throw away the flowers he bought me for my birthday last week. They died in the heat.

Colin is away on holiday until today. I took photos of his magnificent flowering Evening Primrose on the way into town although I'm sure it would have looked a lot better if I could have got there yesterday. He wants me to make a book of all the photos I've taken of his garden this year but I don't think a handmade book will do the trick. What he doesn't realise is that a photographer would select photos to go in a book. He wants them all.

After we'd paid for our fish and prawns, we popped in to see Tito and Enza for coffee, sitting in their garden at the back. Enza's friend Sheila came too. It was a lovely morning with discussion and talk going to and fro. Tito wants me to comment on his writing which he publishes to a Facebook group. Umm.

On our way out, he pointed out a large oil painting on a back wall which was allegedly done by an associate of the director of La Dolce Vita a film made by Federico Fellini in 1960. It was of a nude female torso rising out of waves. The face was blanked out, the legs were hidden by the water. The figure reminded me of something I've read this week about women in South America choosing cosmetic surgery to attract rich, powerful men by modifying their figures to have an hourglass waist, big boobs and big butts. There's a special name for it, La Buchona.

At any rate, I found the picture vulgar and told Tito that I thought it verged on the pornographic. He looked shocked. Uh oh. Apparently he'd acquired it from a friend who lived in a small cottage but the picture wouldn't go through the door. The friend had paid £1000 for it. In that case, it could be sold on the basis of provenance rather than artistic merit. Things like that happen.

Oh, I forgot to mention that it's been a lot cooler today thanks to a shift in wind direction and all day cloud cover. It's been liveable.

Alison at SewRetro sewed up the  hole in the crutch of my baggy trousers while I waited. What a gal!