"I'm calling from London" said a voice with more than a modicum of irritation and superiority. When people announce their geographical location it is to explain a bad phone line, a need to crack on with this as it is costing them a small fortune or an unfamiliarity with our native flowers.  When they announce they are 98 miles due south, it is announce that they are more cosmopolitan, that they fear in the country we are all wrapping chrysanths in polyprop ribbon with a toothless smile and a limited vocabulary.

I always choose to kill people with kindness in these circumstances, disarming them, and their preconceptions. The irony is I have actually grown some chrysanths, they went in late, so didn't reach the competition size I was looking for. Next year.

In a time of blurred boundaries, seasons and timezones, when our language is as homogenised as our high streets, the divide between town and country remains. 

Kenneth telphoned earlier in the week to invite me to a luncheon, he explained  that the guest list was to be comprised of "old fogies some half a century older than you, would you mind?" He has clearly never met any of my boyfriends. 

In other interesting things to think about I mentioned this article on instagram. An article on regret by Emma Freud. It led to some very interesting conversations in the shop, and I also recommended the podcast The regrets of the dying earlier in the year, and if you haven't listened to the series then do. We always regret the things we didn't do, rather than those we did, held back by fear, duty, uncertainty, vanity.