A Trip To Ikea

I can scarcely believe it, but apparently most men would rather have teeth drawn than go on a nice trip to Ikea.  Loads of  room plans to wander round, sofas to poke, drawers to open, and close again, and acres of useful kitchen stuff, plus as many swedish meatballs and Dime Bar cake as you can eat. What's not to like? Hmm, maybe it's just a man thing. Don't worry boys, the world cup's coming up.

Anyway, I went with my daughter to the Edmonton Ikea and came away with, amongst quite a lot of other things some of these lovely little vases.

 The smaller ones  with the usual weird Ikea name of Snartig were 49p each. It's always useful to have a vase or two with narrow necks, for when there's a dearth of flowers to cut, so that you can have a few elegantly restrained stems, as opposed to a big riotous middle-of-the-summer armful in a large jug.

You can see at the back of this picture the tall florist's bucket that I also bought at Ikea. According to Sarah Raven, who knows about these things, you should put your cut flowers in water up to their necks to condition them and make them last much longer in the vase. And you need a really tall deep bucket like this to do it in.

I think a few stems of Marguerites (these are May Queen) or Dog Daisies as my dad used to call them, from the garden look charming in my new Ikea vase. Free flowers and a 49p vase, don't say I'm not cheap to run...

Or a few stems of Iris Sibirica..

Or, if you happen to have a lovely husband around the place, you can leave a spare Snartig lying around the house and you might get a rose fresh from the garden with your cup of tea on your wedding anniversary morning...Ah, lovely.