'I'd like to get you on a slow boat to China
All to myself alone...'
Inspired by the use of a gravy boat as a vase and the presence of the three Chinese sampans made out of shells, this fragment of a once well-known song popped into my head. Personally, I wouldn't want to spend time with anyone on a slow boat to China, or even a fast one come to that, and would indeed think carefully about any boat trip... 
Coincidentally, a recent conversation with my mother threw up the interesting snippet of how much she enjoyed a slow boat from China back to the UK as a child in the 1930s....
Leaving boats aside, I really enjoyed cutting and arranging blooms for today's vase. The selection began with stems of hugely dependable Salvia verticillata 'Purple Rain', encountered in an open garden only a few years back and one I would now highly recommend. Having the gravy boat already in mind, I continued to focus on blue or blueish blooms and was surprised at my eventual haul: side stems of delphinium, annual clary sage 'Oxford Blue', cornflower from 'Polka Dot Mixed' and stems of what is labelled as Veronica 'Schneeriesin' but is sporting these light blue blooms as well as white, with the addition of obliging semi-herbaceous Clematis 'Arabella' which is proving to work really well as a cut bloom.
The end result is most satisfying, especially being the most ambitious of my vases so far this year, and makes a change from simply picking and plonking. If you have blooms or other material from your gardens or garnered nearby that you would like to share with us on IAVOM, then please join in by leaving the usual links to and from this post. Simple or elaborate, arranged or plonked, all are welcome and all will undoubtedly bring pleasure.
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