Sometimes it might be better not said with flowers. Or said at all, really

Since it's Valentine's Day at the end of the week, here are three moments with blooms. Yeah, just don't expect chemical romance. Or any romance, really.


1. Be my (sweaty) Valentine

It's early 1999. I'm in Australia for a conference, sent 10,000 miles for a 2-hour presentation, my remit to be perky and convince people to promote our books better than others. I arrive on Valentine's Day and, since my slot isn't until the next day, I figure I'll go for a run and try and re-ignite the Pollyanna bounce that's won me this gig in the first place. I've been travelling for what feels like a couple of years, so I dig out my running gear and head off into the Hunter Valley. It's gorgeous; February is the height of summer, so the neighbourhood gardens are full of flowers and mad-looking birds dive around. I run a couple of miles out to a boardwalk landing pier and stop to take in the craziness of being out here, in the middle of nowhere, barely a day and a half after commuter-crazy London.

On my way back to the hotel, a young-ish guy is hanging over one of the garden gates. When he sees me slogging sweatily past, he waves for me to stop. Because I am genetically predisposed to (a) talk to anyone and (b) always trust strangers (I know, I know), I stop. He hands me a beautiful pink rose, cut from the garden.

"I saw you go past" he says, channeling Jason Donovan rather than Heath Ledger, more's the pity, "and just wanted to say Happy Valentine's Day".

********

2. I wouldn't touch her with yours, pal

It's New Year's Eve 1996 (?). I'm in Paris with the boys, visiting our pal Ol, he of the boundary-less phone calls. We end up in some very un-chic divey bar; sawdust on the floor, cheesy music, the works. It's minus WhatNow?! outside and we're all together again for a few days, so we don't care.
A few minutes after midnight, one of those rose-sellers arrives in the bar. I'm huddled in a corner with Ol, putting the world to rights as we were wont to do. The flower guy comes over and waves a rose in my general direction. Ol and I wave back at him, in dismissal, but he's persistent.
"A rose for the beautiful lady?" he asks, in French.

Quick pause for an editorial note here: Ol's bilingual, and though it's not like we speak French together, I was studying it for the first four years we knew each other, so he knows I'll understand him.

Oli looks at the guy, then at me. Then he leans towards the flower seller and said, gesticulating in disgust,

"Look at her! Honestly - would you buy her a rose? C'mon, mate, don't be crazy. I'm not wasting my money like that"

I'm not in the slightest bit upset - this is our MO, and Ol knew that he'd get plenty of grief from me in return. The poor flower seller, though, had no idea what to do. Panicking, he thrusts an armful of roses at me, and with a muttered - "Here - happy New Year" - flees into the night.

*********

3. Heaven knows I'm miserable now

I'm 19, and in my second term at college. I come back to the room after a long day of trying not to feel sorry for myself (nothing wrong beyond the usual late-teenage angst which seems so insurmountable at the time) and trip into the hugest pile of flowers I've ever seen, before or since. And by pile, I mean pile. There are close on 30 bunches of blooms, of all sorts - roses, irises, carnations, early daffodils (always the worst when you're homesick for the green, green grass of home).

Each room door in halls has a pinboard on it, where you leave a piece of paper for your mates to write notes on should they happen round in your absence (oh, the random rituals we had before the joys of texting). I clear a path through the Amsterdam Flower Gardens that now consitutes my hallway and read the message scrawled on the board. It's from Theo, one of my best mates and sort of substitute brother (not that I've ever had a brother, but if I did, I imagine our relationship to be like mine and Theo's; lots of fighting and utter reliance).

"Saz-
I went to the market at the end of the day and told the flower guy he'd never seen anyone as pathetic and sad as you, so he gave me all these for a fiver. Hope these make your Thursday better. Theeee "

That extra weight really suits you*: the best backhanded compliments I've ever received

A good while ago now, Antonia put up a post about the nicest things anyone's ever said to her. Antonia comes across as the sort of person it'd be pretty easy to say cool things about, and the list was as you'd expect - articulate, and funny, and pretty moving in parts.

It got me thinking, as I suppose in part it was intended to, about the nicest things anyone's ever said to me. The more I thought, the fewer I could think of - the reverse of that "think of a carrot" thing. See, now whatever else you try to focus on, a carrot's floating there like an unasked-for mental episode of Bugs Bunny, isn't it?

What I did come up with made me giggle. Nothing as straightforward as praise. Mine are the nicest backhanded compliments anyone has ever paid me:

"You do the motorway driving, because you drive like you don't care"

In September of the year 2000, Alex and I went to Italy for a week. We've been friends literally since I was born, but we hadn't been away together for years, and this was a post-apocalyptic holiday for us both in different ways. My manifestation of the end of the world was best demonstrated by driving like a maniac on the roads, which in Italy largely went unnoticed. Which is why, when it came to driving, Alex very logically divided our duties. She took the cities.

"You've got the biggest knockers I know - help me out here, would you?"

Ol is part of my college gang and one of my closest friends - the type who's seen you at your very worst from every possible angle, and doesn't give a shit. There are a few people in my life for whom "boundary" is an utterly irrelevant word - we'll be honest about anything, any time, if the question is asked. Ol's one of them (no shit).
Back in 2001 we were both living in London and kicking around a lot together. I was in John Lewis one Saturday afternoon (I remember this because I hate shopping) when my phone rang. Ol, with a vital question, requiring knowledge he assumed I'd have. Apparently friendships can indeed be no holds barred - including asking for a quick 0898 impression in the middle of the cookware section. Nigella would have been proud.

"You? Seriously? I didn't know you went to Cambridge"

I last heard this one about a month ago, out for dinner with a group of friends I've known for a couple of years now. I'm always ridiculously pleased by it. Not that I have anything against my "Cambridge' tag. I made some everlasting friends there (yes, even the ones who phone with random questions in the middle of John Lewis) and got to read books for four years in one of the most beautiful settings you could ask for. For someone like me who aspired to live largely in dreamland, it was a great place, and my particular college wasn't too pretentious or full of those over-corrected public school types you'd see in their house scarves earnestly selling the Socialist Worker outside the arts block before jumping into Mummy's Merc to get to their "place" in the country for the weekend.

It's not like, these days, where I (one) studied exactly takes up much room in conversation either, let's face it. Still, I'm always pleased when people are surprised by this because I've always most felt I belong, as we are all sick of hearing about on this blog, is the forest. Oxbridge and the Forest of Dean aren't by any stretch mutually exclusive - look at Dennis Potter, for starters - but they aren't the most intuitive jump, either. And I'm prouder of my origins than any transitional seat of learning, so I'm glad that, essentially, that's what shows through first. Sure, if I need to, I can whip out the Ivy-league cred, but that's not what informs me for the most part.


*I've never heard this one personally, but it's still one of my all-time favourite "What now?"s.