Brenda's Beautiful Fruit Sculpture

We hosted a summer barbecue in our garden yesterday. It started at 2 in the afternoon and finished at about 11 o'clock at night so it was a busy, sociable day. Since barbecue food is quite rich, I'd bought masses of fresh fruit, especially strawberries and stone fruits such as greengages and apricots, and when my friend Brenda Kevan, who was staying with us over the weekend, asked if she could do something, I suggested that she make a fruit sculpture, using a beautiful big turned wooden bowl that Alan bought me a while ago. Here it is:

Isn't it beautiful?



Brenda, incidentally, is absolutely brilliant at interior design and all kinds of associated 'vintage' things. She and her husband John have worked as wedding photographers for many years, and very good they are too, but I think Brenda's first love has always been design - creating a 'look' just for pleasure. Whenever you get a gift from Brenda, it will be beautifully wrapped and embellished with some wonderful and original little extra. One Christmas, for instance, all our gifts had small, flat beach pebbles with our names and the year written on them. I have them still, tucked into my Christmas pot pourri. She has made a design paradise of a little studio at the bottom of her garden in Lancashire, and her house is full of fascinating corners and collections including an outdoor 'room' where - whenever we're visiting - we eat and drink in inspiring surroundings. She's so full of excellent ideas that I always think it's a shame that she doesn't do this kind of design full time. I suspect if given the opportunity, she would be able to provide material (and illustrations) for a dozen interesting books!