A bit of brightness

The weather has been so dreary, wet and grey recently (wellie-wearing is a must when taking Jess for her walks) that when I went to the supermarket after our first knitting group of year, I splashed out the princely sum of £3 and bought a vase and then headed over to the flower display.

To be honest, the flowers in Tesco were either a bit uninspiring, or a bit pricey (and some of the bunches were rather granny-ish, if you know what I mean).

I was about to admit defeat and come home flowerless, but then spotted some that had a label saying "Bumper Germini".  I think these are a small version of gerbera, but the red, orange and yellow looked so bright I couldn't resist.  I think I paid £5 for them, which isn't cheap, but I really wanted something bright to look at when I'm in the kitchen.

Roll on spring when there will colourful tulips and vibrant daffodils in the shops.

Until this morning, the pot on the left (in the photo) had some pink hyacinths in them, but they'd gone way beyond their best and so they got chopped back.  I'm going to search on the internet to find recommendations for storing the bulbs in the hope that they'll bloom again next year as they were a very pretty pink.  I bought them from Sainsbury's for £3 a few weeks ago.  

The blue 'thing' to the right of the bright flowers is one of those battery-operated hand-wash dispensers which my father-in-law gave us when hubby and DD1 visited last week.  The idea is that you put your hand underneath the sticky out thing and it senses your hand is there and dispenses some handwash.  A very good idea - as long as I remember it's there and don't do my usual of squirting a blob of washing-up liquid onto my hands. 

The pot on the right of the photo is a miniature rose.  It's become a bit of a tradition that just before Christmas hubby arranges for some roses to be delivered to me.  I think it was two years ago that he sent me 40 red roses which was lovely, except I only have one large vase and they only fitted in there with a bit of squashing.  This year, however, he couldn't find somewhere that would deliver a nice bunch of roses (he usually gets them from Marks & Spencer), so he settled for a pot plant of miniature dark red roses which came in a basket with a bottle of white wine and a box of Swiss chocolates, which was still very nice.  I've been checking the roses daily and snipping off the flowers that have died and there are some more buds on there, but I'm not sure if they'll flower very well.  I might re-pot the plant once the weather's nicer (if it's still alive).

I'm still plodding away on my stripey scarf; it's just the right sort of project for knitting group (when we natter away) and for working on whilst watching television.