The tea shed has really been living up to its name over the last few days. As the kitchen inches closer to being habitable, we love spending time down here cooking on a camping stove, with a cup of warm tea in hand – relaxing a good few metres away from the chaos.
This weekend I spent a beautiful morning brewing rose tea and arranging flowers in my random collection of vases and jars, the shed has never smelled so good. Creative collaborations are one of the lovely things that have come from blogging about our home and life and last week I was sent a magical gold box filled with glass tea ware by Jing Tea and the most amazing and beautiful bouquet from The Real Flower Company.
Excited for a spur of the moment styling opportunity and a reason to rearrange the shed, I spent Sunday morning tidying up and put the kettle on. I planned on drinking tea and spending a few quiet hours in the garden surrounded by beautiful blooms.
I am feeling spoilt and very grateful to add one of Jing’s tea decanters to my tea making paraphernalia, it is perfect for making up jugs of iced teas in the summer and warming spiced chai to share with guests in the winter – and has a beautiful pour too. I can see its elegant form gracing our breakfast table most days and right now it is doubling up as a vase for some of these stunning ruffled, peachy pink Evelyn roses.
I must tell you a little bit more about The Real Flower Company, I remember swooning over their beautiful hat box bouquets years ago when I first started blogging. It was a dream come true to answer my door and see a man standing outside with one of their boxes all tied up with green satin ribbon. Their exquisitely scented roses (the best I have ever sniffed and I am a cereal rose sniffer), English flowers, herbs and foliage are all grown on their English farm in Hampshire and their Fairtrade sustainable farm in Kenya, when the UK growing season is over.
I have made plans to visit the farm soon to meet the owner and growers – I cannot tell you how excited I am to meet Rosebie the founder, wander through the rose paddock and take some more photos to share. Since we have had a garden, I am obsessed with growing flowers and now my dahlias have survived I am feeling confident to start my own cut flower patch next year. I’ll keep you posted on the progress of that – working kitchen first!
These roses smell like sun ripened apricots and peaches, they really are the best scented roses I have ever had in the house (or shed). Once our living space is finished I am going to treat myself to another bunch to celebrate us having a working kitchen and room for a coffee table again.
This is how the shed looks if I take a step back – we dug this old folding table out of the garage and painted it with some Annie Sloan paint so I could use it as a work bench and we could eat outdoors, it’s the perfect size to be strewn with flowers and tea making equipment.
It feels quite special to see whole rosebuds swirling around in a glass tea pot. They release their delicate rosy aroma and create a soothing infusion, the ultimate remedy for some of the crazy days around here. In the mornings I like to add a spoonful of jasmine tea for a floral pick me up.
For this creative flower fest – the rest of the shed contents were ceremoniously dumped on the wasteland outside and I actually like how they made an impromptu out door living room, I sat in the sun and divided up the roses and flowers into smaller posies to dot around the house. Hydrangeas, snap dragons, scabiosa, wild flowers and foliage in all my favourite colours of pinks, mauves and peach, I managed to make five smaller flower arrangements from this marvellous bouquet.
It turns out that a cup of rose bud tea is the perfect accompaniment to an hour or two reading classic romance novels in a shaded shed. Marlo wasn’t much help but she slept on her chair next to me while I worked.
