Happy Late Valentine's Day

The Vol-in-Law apparently wrote in his pocket calendar "Flowers for VA" in the little slot for 14 February. (Hmmm...maybe I should check that out - since I've never had flowers from him before - except the time he retrieved a fresh bouquet from the gutter) But he decided not to buy me any when I proposed that we attend one of the RHS London flower shows. Attending the show, looking at the exhibits and not complaining or getting antsy would be his gift to me.

On the way in, we ran into one of our fellow Tooting constituents who had been at the Tooting open primary the night before. We talked about the result and how pleased we were with our new candidate Mark Clarke. She also regretted not bringing her camera to the show. It was lovely - with all the early spring bulbs - the snowdrops, early narcissus, crocus and iris reticulata. I did bring my camera.



More photos here

And the ViL was good - and I poked around the flowers as long as I wanted and I bought some vegetable seed for the ex-pond including a heritage variety of Tennessee tomatoes called Cherokee Purple (Do any readers know this variety?) But we didn't buy any flowers. I was awful tempted by the double hellebores (the red speckled flowers above ) - but wasn't sure I wanted to pay £15 (almost $30) for one spriggly plant - plus we still had some things to do and I didn't want to be dragging expensive, spriggling flowers through town in the rush hour. Although I would have bought these lovely orange crocus if I'd seen them for sale.




We did stop on the way home at our local flower and pet shop and bought some primrose, which we can enjoy throughout the end of winter and early spring.