You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

At this time of year, when the garden is a barren wasteland, and the weather is hardly gardener-friendly, there's nothing nicer than pouring over an enticing seed catalogue, and dreaming of what's to come. The Sarah Raven catalogue came flitting through the door recently, and with it all the inflated hope that one day MY garden would be full to burtsing with every kind of gorgeous flower and succulent vegetable, just like hers is at Perch Hill (and now, of course, Sissinghurst. What, one amazing garden wasn't enough? Did she sell her soul to the gardening-God when she was young?). I like how there are a few carefully chosen photos of Sarah daintily collecting jewel coloured rhubarb, as she wanders through her enormous garden, swathed in rabbit fur. The whole excercise seems extremely easy, glamorous, and ultimately hugely virtuous:Yes we grown and eat all our own courgettes! Yes our Italian cook uses at least 39875lbs of home-grown heritage tomatoes to maker her famous passata - I didn't even know it was commercially available until I unwittingly wandered into a supermarket once when I only put one contact lens in by mistake!

If there were pictures of me in that catalogue, they would feature me knee-deep in compost fishing my mobile phone out of the compost heap (yes this actually happened), or using a few choice adjectives at high volume when I discovered that mice had eaten every single last one of my sweet-pea seeds, despite a fort-knox-crossed-with-the-kremlin style greenhouse security system, oh, and I would be swathed in...well...I don't think I own any clothes made out of swathable material... Maybe this year I'll catch the mice and turn them into a coat..... only joking, I'm rubbish at sewing. Despite the veneer of gardening ease which I know to be false, I have of course succumbed utterly to everything, and made gardening plans well beyond my capabilities and budget. It's a bit like watching a haute couture catwalk show when you can't even fit into your pyjamas, and your overdraft is roughly equivalent to America's national defecit.

What is ALWAYS fun is wandering around New Covent Garden Market. Talk about window shopping. Whenever I'm feeling a bit lacklustre in the auld creative department I just stroll around the 'sundries' suppliers with my mouth open, bumping into six-foot high faux Grecian urns made of lime coloured perspex, and meandering through oceans of every conceivable

bloom, plus some inconceivable ones (what is the deal with those xanths you get which have been dyed blue and purple? I remember doing that at primary school in science class, it didn't make me think, "Wouldn't this look nice in a bouquet?" it made me think, "what have I CREATED!!??"

You want£6000 worth of peonies? They have them...

You want 500 black glass candelabra? Your ship has come in...

Yes it's also a bit of a hide-me-from-reality fest, but when it's this cold and windy, and even thoughts of summer seem ludicrously far away, it's nice to know there's a sort of florist's sweet shop there to make your mouth water, and it doesn't involve any mud or hard work. Unless you count the 3am start to get there...

The Bucket residence, the lady of the house speaking

Here's a handy tip. If you've got metal buckets full of water, and you hear that the temperature is going to drop to -10 degrees, then EMPTY THEM. Otherwise you get to play the super fun game of Icebucketpalooza, where no one is a winner.

Here are some jaunty photos of the wedding at Lympne Castle which I did just before Christmas. It was great to be a guest at the wedding, as it's quite sad doing wedding flowers, dropping them off, and never getting to see the finished effect, or the reaction it gets. Often you don't even get to see the bride when you drop bouquets off, although when you do see the bride, she bursts into tears - usually of joy....I think.

I had a strict wedding flower timetable, thrown into total chaos when I woke up on day 1 of the Strict Timetable to find I had been stricken by the mystery illness of ultimate doom. Thus, instead of the leisurely, consistant, no-detail-too-small approach I had envisaged, I instead had to do my best impression of a headless chicken. My degree in drama served me well for this, as I was once lucky enough to play the part of a chicken in a production about eggs...

Anyway, it all got done in the end, it looked lovely, everyone had a jolly time and love conquered all. At the wedding I mean, not in the egg play.

Christmas went by in a flash of greenery, food and new socks, and here we are in 2009. Naturally, having made approximately an infinte number of wreaths, I only got round to doing one for my front door on Christmas Eve...

I have a new diary for 2009, and as I leafed through it I noticed that it listed every single obscure international holiday (this year, Cheese Day, Clear Off Your Desk Day, and Presidential Inauguration Day all fall on January 20.) but NOT Valentines day. I was perturbed. Had I got the wrong date? Had I imagined the whole sorry debacle? I'm pretty sure it still exists. I think I'll join the crusade to say NO to red roses on Valentines day, and recommend beautiful posies of scented seasonal bulb like things this year. That's eco love. It seems absurdly early to start thinking about such things but us florists have to get a head start on things. Especially those of us who manage to freeze our own equipment by mistake...