Invasion of the white rose

Didn't I tell you the rose situation was going to get out of hand?

I already have more than I know what to do with.

But they are all kinds of lovely and at a time when far too much is heaped onto my plate and all I want to do is lie in the sun with a book and tell the world to sod off, they make the corners of my mouth bend up.

   

A weekend of firsts

We managed to sneak away to the bach for three glorious nights and on Saturday, we shovelled down the season's first strawberries (doused in aged balsamic vinegar, icing sugar and cream).

By the time we got home, the first white roses were nudging their creamy heads towards the sun. I am such a floral geek but I ADORE these delicate beauties which, as summer unspools, end up covering almost every surface and spilling out of every possible receptacle. They are, in my humble opinion, the most perfect of flowers (along with my other favourites, Christmas lillies and white peonies).

.

  

Better

It wasn't pretty but thanks to a weekend spent mainly in bed, and to a diet of Lemsip and Robitussin, I have managed to crawl out from the under the sickness blanket.

I'm still not feeling 100% and should probably be lying on the couch, mainlining Vitamin C and overdosing on Orange is the New Black, but there is work to be done and people to interview and photoshoots to attend. And so, like those annoying adverts for flu meds, I shall soldier on.

Today's visuals are of these gorgeous, if somewhat confused, white roses from my garden. It's WINTER, ya'll, you SHOULDN'T be blooming so pretty and white.

But at least it gives me the chance to play the denial game - that it's still summertime and that I'm not actually wearing 10 layers of clothing and chugging cough syrup but wandering lazily through a sun-lit meadow in a pretty slip of a dress with a chilled glass of rose.

This here folks is exactly what happens when you pay scant attention to the 'do not exceed' warnings on the side of flu and cold medication.

  

The industry continues

While I lashed myself to the laptop, the Animator got busy in his man cave.

The result: a much needed shelf in one of three wardrobes I currently occupy (yeah, yeah, I know).

There was also the sorting out of this way cool vintage picnic basket I found on TradeMe which, I'm guessing, was last cleaned when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. But the Animator waved his DIY wand over it and it's now good as new.

The garden, meanwhile, coughed up the final roses of summer.

  
And then there was this wee poppet who has such a tiring life, he needs to spend most of the day in slumber. Preferably between two pillows.

I want to come back as him.

Tardis and white roses

How a conversation with a 20-something colleague went today:

Him: "I love being this age and never want to get older. Shazzy, do you ever wish you could go back to your 20s?"

Me: "If I found a tardis that could take me back to my 20s, I would grab a hammer and smash it beyond all recognition before setting it alight."

Him: "Wow, so you didn't enjoy your 20s then?"

Me: "God yes, especially the living in London and seeing the world through a drunken haze bit. But being poor and a smart-arse, despite knowing absolutely nothing, drowning in a sea of hormones and inane anxiety, thinking society owed me and being crippled by a lack of confidence, yet still behaving like an arrogant, immature brat, as pretty much every 20-year-old on the planet does? Hell to the no..."

Him: "When you put it like that...."

As a sign of my increasing maturity, the thing that filled me with the most joy today were my white roses. I am about as far removed from Maggie Barry as it's possible to be, but I have been on rose watch for the past two weeks, ever since the buds first pushed their tiny faces towards the sun.

Soon, very soon, pitchers of them will fill every available surface, and their fragrance will hang like a heavy quilt over the house.

Give me white roses and a birthday cake weighed down with candles any day...