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Found the ugliest vase I've ever seen in the charity shop yesterday. Thought 'omg, that's the ugliest vase I've ever seen.' Then I looked at it again. And then I looked at it again and began to smile.
Then I looked at some dresses, and then I came back and looked at the ugliest vase in the world again, and decided that I absolutely loved it.
I would put daffodils in it, I thought. Daffodils would look great in that pile of elephant's dung.
So since it was only £7, I am now the proud possessor of the ugliest vase in the world, and I have put daffodils in it, and they do look great.
I am immensely pleased with this vase, and now I'm going to show it to you :)
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Date: 2023-03-07 07:41 pm (UTC)From:Hahaha omg... What a thought. They do look great, though! 😂🌻
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Date: 2023-03-08 10:39 am (UTC)From:Thank you! It's nice when a plan comes together :)
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Date: 2023-03-07 11:20 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-03-08 10:44 am (UTC)From:I think it's definitely the good sort of ugly, not the kind that puts you off but the kind that makes you want to smoosh its little cheeks (metaphorically.) Actually it reminds me of my daughter's Sphinx cat, who is really very wrinkly and goblin-like and yet gorgeous because of it. The French have a term jolie laide which I believe means someone who is plain in such a striking, interesting way, that it's just as good as being beautiful, which is how I really feel about this I guess :) Definitely not a pity thing - I do genuinely like it a lot.
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Date: 2023-03-08 01:59 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-03-08 10:46 am (UTC)From:Thank you! You get me! :) Yes, it's not at all beautiful and yet its also really endearing and I like it a lot, especially with the daffs :)
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Date: 2023-03-08 11:00 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-03-09 09:47 am (UTC)From:I wish I knew who the maker was! It has got a mark on the bottom, but it's not turning anything up in Google. It very much reminds me of the Martin Brothers grotesque jugs but it isn't one of theirs. But yeah, I definitely don't think it got that lumpy by accident ;)
Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-10 09:55 am (UTC)From:Re: Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-10 10:19 am (UTC)From:I'm going to try it with whatever flowers I can manage to grow in my garden, obviously, but daffs do seem to be tailor made. (Which is good because little bundles of daffodils for £1 are available everywhere at the moment, and spring is the one time of year when I really feel the need to buy flowers in order to cheer up the leaden skies and the rain.)
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-10 10:36 am (UTC)From:I suspect the pot will look best with contrasting flowers. Pink, lavender, or light blue should work too. A mix of wildflowers would be lovely.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-15 09:59 am (UTC)From:Yes, I have a north facing garden in which the very best spots get partial shade and the rest get deep shade, so although my neighbours' daffodils are out, mine are still in bud.
I was thinking of putting plum blossom in it for that authentic wabi-sabi look, but then I found myself reluctant to cut anything off any of my very small trees. I have some hyacinths coming up now though, which should be a good colour as well as an amazing smell :)
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-15 10:17 am (UTC)From:Watch the base of your plums though. Some will sucker and those are best removed anyhow. It's a tossup whether you'll get leaves or a few flowers from putting the cut suckers in water, depends on the variety.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-16 09:38 am (UTC)From:LOL! Yes, I strongly suspect that at least one of my three small plum trees in the garden was originally a sucker off the neighbour's much bigger plum tree across the fence. I would suspect the two other as well, except that they are a different variety. Three plum trees in one garden is plenty! (In fact I'm considering removing one to add a second apple tree for cross fertilization.)
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-16 09:42 am (UTC)From:https://www.bronandsons.com/info/pollination-chart.html
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-16 09:51 am (UTC)From:^-^ I was thinking of getting rid of the one that was the duplicate of the neighbours' tree, because we already get windfall plums from the bit of their tree that hangs over our fence. Honestly we already can't cope with the volume of plums we're getting in a summer, and once the three baby trees grow up it'll be an inundation.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-16 06:40 pm (UTC)From:To cope with large volumes of fruit, however, consider doing something that requires mass quantities because it greatly reduces the volume. Ordinary drying gets you prunes, but if you take it all the way to bone dry, you can drop them in a food processor or mortar and pestle then grind them to powder. Sweet, delicious, plummy powder. Another option is making plum butter. If you cook it way down, the natural fruit sugars become concentrated, so you don't need to add any refined sugar.
A different approach is finding someone else who grows a different type of produce. Swap them excess plums for whatever they're growing.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-17 09:34 am (UTC)From:So far I've been mostly
but our council are setting up a local spot where everyone can leave their own excess fruit for anyone to take away as will, and that will hopefully get rid of the last of it :) It's a nice problem to have!
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2023-03-17 10:16 pm (UTC)From:That is an excellent plan. \o/
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Date: 2023-03-10 02:06 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-03-15 09:53 am (UTC)From:Thank you! Yes, I'm very happy with it. It's currently sitting on my desk as one of my few special objects-that-make-me-smile. At some point I should make a list of the objects I would happily leave behind in a fire - and then think of taking some of them to the charity shop - but this vase would not be on that list :)