Flowers...and Next to nature, art (Lively)

As I mentioned a while ago, myself and my boyfriend have been celebrating our 2nd anniversary for a while, but the actual date was Tuesday 05 August. After lunch at work, one of the porters came in carrying the most enormous bunch of flowers that I have ever seen, and they turned out to be for me!! As you can see from the picture, they are absolutely huge, dominating the living room. I'm afraid my first thought wasn't "how lovely", but "how on earth am I going to get them home" - I cycle to work you see. Boyfriend had been intending to pick me and the flowers up apparently, but missed my thank you message as he was in a conference call. However, my boss was sufficiently charmed by his gesture to offer to spend some of the afternoon driving me and the flowers back home, and lending me the vase. I repaid her in Nigella's cherry cupcakes.

When I made it home for the second time that day, I needed some flowery-themed reading, and the best thing that I could find on the TBRBC was Lively's Next to nature, art. Well, flowers are nature. Obviously, as Paperback Reader reminded me, I should have looked at the covers which might have given me something a bit more interesting. I can't remember quite why I bought Next to nature, art, apart from the fact that I have enjoyed some of Lively's writing very much, but I'm afraid this one fell into the category of books that I wish I had borrowed from the library rather than bought. With that wonderful endorsement, I can't even offer it to any of my readers here!

It's the story of Farmleigh Creative Study Centre, a commune-like establishment, run by five artistic friends as part of a mission to prevent an inherited manor house from being sold, where "ordinary people" can pay a large sum of money to spend the week with creative people, working with them and indulging in an escape from daily life. Inevitably the creative types turn out to be frauds. It was fairly well written, but not terribly gripping. And not even hugely about flowers.

The flowers look like they'll last a while, so any suggestions of flower-themed reading that I can do from the sofa admiring them would be much appreciated. (I typed "flower" into the Virago search engine and the only VMC it threw back is Carter's Several Perceptions because the synopsis talks about it being about the "flower-power-generation"!)

We're off for the weekend again today; Bournemouth this time, to support our friends playing on the bandstand, and to spend time with my boyfriend's Dad, sister, and her boyfriend. And to have a couple of rounds of crazy golf and a wander down the prom. I have thrown quite a random assortment of books into my suitcase. The experience of the last couple of weekends away suggests that I won't get as much time to read as I would like, but one can hope!

Look out for a couple of VVV posts set to load while I'm away - I'm doing quite well over there! - and I promise you a very exciting book-themed bake of the week on Monday.