watch this space

preparations are well underway for our appearance on anthony gormley’s 4th plinth in trafalgar square … we know exactly what we are doing… so much so we will explain it in technicolour detail over the next few days here…. hopefully! *nerves*

well the day before yesterday we visited lots of our lovely friends and neighbours and asked them to turn out their cupboards and donate any old material to our fourth plinth appearance and as usual they came up trumps… we even managed to borrow a sewing machine after ours had gone on the blink! we set about a bit of pinking and created some strips of fabric that by sometime later today will become a grass like attraction that we can take onto the plinth… *fingers crossed*

after some frantic texting throughout the day after the lovely @oneoffstuff had said that we should get a microphone (we have still got to work out what we might say!) this weeks hero @martyngale rocked up in his old veg oil powered jeep to deliver a battery powered microphone.. he didn’t stay for tea because he was off to launch some rockets but he did promise he’d tell us all about it on tuesday!

still frantically rushing round trying to finish off… really don’t have a clue what to wear… will be back later!

well 12 meters of recycled grass later… i didn’t have time to finish sewing it all so it was infact entirely pinned together and i was petrified that it would all get tangled up and not unroll but it was too late to do anything else!!
i dyed the pink mermaid dress that the onion presented me with purple… in all the hurry i managed to catch it on the door handle so my lovely mum patched it for me at somewhere between 2 and 3 am on sunday morning!!

after about a whole hours sleep i left the house to pick up @oneoffstuff who came for yoga breathing and moral support which i am eternally grateful for! by the time we got to london i felt really quite sick… absolutely petrified and was ready not to go up but i knoew all my most favouritist people had ventured into london to see it live or through the wonders of the net were watching live from all over the world so in i went!

well the guys in the portacabin were absolutely lovely… really helpful getting a whole field of grass across trafalgar square wasn’t easy but everyone mucked in! I had to arrive an hour and a half before my time slot because there is masses to do when you get there… but the crew are old pros now!… as they have already seen 90% of the 2400 plinthees! I had to show photo id to prove who i was … check passed that one…. i then had to sign my life away well there were lots of forms… media release forms, check forms and health and safety forms and a questionaire. I then had 5 minutes to get changed before having to have my photo taken and be interviewed for the Wellcome
Trust who are documenting the project in a series of oral history interviews… fantastic great supporter of their work so chatted as usual for far too long which meant we had to do a quick dash across the square and onto the cherry picker!… everything was a bit out of sync because the square had been closed off for the diwali celebrations that we had organised especially… with the help of the mayor of london and a few others!
After a final security check for anything sharp… it was lucky the security guard said that i was allowed pins… i was slightly worried!! we set off across trafalgar square and into the cherry picker…
well one of the things i was really worried about was the height… heights are not my favourite things but on the way up i thought i’d better grab a photo for my collection and by the time i had done that i was up there bingo!

then i was on the plinth… finally….
i was still worried but had to get the grass out so that is what i did and luckily it didn’t get too tangled up… got the mic plugged in and then all i had to do was talk!… it made me far to nervous to think i was on the plinth in trafalgar square talking through a mic so after about 5 mins i thought i’d just pretend i was talking to my friends who i could see at the bottom… then i felt much happier and even started to enjoy it!!

my favourite bit was throwing lots of naked flowers off and watching people do silly things with them.. and starting to talk about where they had come from and how they were made… that made it all worthwhile!! i even managed to persuade a policeman with a flower to have his photograph taken for the collection!! have a watch here

my second favourite bit was walking through trafalgar square afterwards and looking up at the plinth to see that a couple of naked flowers had decided to stay up there!!

a huge thank you to everyone that helped and supported me with the plinth mission… i really hope you enjoyed it! and don’t forget you can now send someone you love a naked flower…. just choose the naked flower delivery option!

flowers by henryandjayne

during my recent trip to india we managed to grab a bit of video about how we make the flowers… whilst editing in the middle of nowhere i may add i asked if we could find any english music for a soundtrack after much searching the one we used was presented!… i laughed so hard i had teas rolling down my face and i nearly fell off my chair i couldn’t breathe and whist this was going on i think i must of said it’ll do!… well it has done and i hope it brings a smile to your face as well!! please enjoy any questions just ask!… and before you do yes our sheep get sheared with big sisscors!!

packaging experiment take #1

packaging does literally cost the earth… we are constantly trying to work out what packaging we should use but actually we just like naked flowers so that prompted us to question exactly how much packaging we need and what exactly do we need it for… so we teamed up with carla who also has a naughty mutt and decided to send her a flower with just an address label via royal mail to see what happens…

well the story continues in our local post office… a flower with no packaging caused much hilarity and debate… i wasn’t sure to begin with if i was going to be allowed to post it at all. I managed to persuade them to at least weigh it so that if I decided to send it anyway then at least it would have the right postage on! £1.08 a bargain normally when we send a single stem in packaging it costs £1.41 so by not packaging the flower not only have we not used the earth precious resources but we have also saved £0.33 on the postage and the time to pack and collect the materials we use to pack age with at the moment *brain starts chugging into action* this is good!

meanwhile in the post office we start discussing all the things we could possibly use to wrap the flower in (I have a list! this experiment is not over yet!) and end up deciding that even if its gets a little bit dirty its worth trying as an experiment and actually what a shame that postman charlie isn’t on today because he’d love to deliver one! (well charlie…. watch and see….)

bon voyage little flower… have fun!

well it started to get exciting…. postie richard was spotted in shropshire carrying our precious goods for delivery to naughty mutt

not only did it arrive but richard gave us loads of advice…. (i have a plan…. come back in a few days a see if it worked!)

“The lovely flower arrived safely this morning and I had a conversation with Richard the nice postie about it. He was really interested and said:
The flower doesn’t go through a machine at any point
Reinforce the hole you make on the card – and put it about 5mm further into the card (you can see on the pic it’s a bit frayed)
Use coir or a twisted natural type of string through the hole as the weakest part was the way the label is attached.
Don’t cut the label to a V shape as it weakens it – if you cut it then make a rounded shape” naughtymutt

in 24 hours without a scratch our little flower courtesy of royal mail reached shropshire and put a smile on our friend carla’s face and a cheeky grin on the naughty mutt!

This was good! now we want to do it again using reinforced holes and natural type string (thank you again richard!)… would you like to take part in packaging experiment take 1 and receive a free naked flower? all you have to do is promise to send us a picture of the condition in which it arrives… leave a comment here and email liz@henryandjayne.co.uk with your address

well new labels made and natural string located…. this morning i went to see bee in our local post office to send your flowers on their way…. everything crossed!!

and this one is going international… is it too much to soon? check back and find out!

well the rest of the naked flowers started their journey yesterday, bee weighed and stamped them as well as checking my labels!! she also remembered that we hadn’t put a customs declaration on the international ones… it was quite funny because we couldn’t decide if we actually needed a customs declaration if the package was packaged!… but we decided to put one on just for fun… she asked me if the flower had any value and i looked up and said it priceless… it’s handmade!

whilst i was causing havoc in the post office the first naked flower arrived at its destination… in wait for it *drum roll please* perfect condition! hooray and this is what sara had to say…

“Here it is and in perfect condition – lovely to find it on top of all the other post outside my front door and I prefer it like this than being packaged although I am not sure about the re-use of Xmas cards. I think I’d prefer a basic brown parcel label made from recycled materials or paper.”

really very pleased that no2 has landed safely and now we will work on improving the labels…. we will use what we have first as this is what we usually do and i really hate waste and i will ask the boys if we can come up with something. we try and use natural materials that have been made in the right way first of all and if possible ones that have been made by hand like our paper products handmade from upcycled cotton waste more often than not recycling uses more energy to to its job than starting from scratch… if the resources are available. we’ll let you know what we come up with!

latest news on no3 to land is it may have been stuck at the post office to collect because of underpaid postage?…. bee weighed each one….? lets see what happens!

well so far so good… most of the naked flowers have now reached their new homes in perfect condition… we’ve made a set on flickr with them all in save having a never ending blog post!…. almost time to think about how we can implement these fantastic results!…. we’re just waiting with our fingers very crossed about the naked flowers that we sent across the pond… as usual we’ll keep you posted!

its landed! and guess what…..

now we’re off to the drawing board…. we’ll be back soon!

lady fingers (in curry of course!)

before we decide what we are having for supper we find a vegetable cart and see what looks best otherwise sod’s law says you want bindi (lady fingers) then there won’t be any bindi…. but this just reminds me of how great it is to have shops sell you vegetables that are locally grown and in season! you eats loads of them when they are good, don’t have them for months and then look forward to them coming back into season! well bindi is in season at the moment and @apasboy needs a recipe in return for a great goat shot!! so @apasboy you will need….
3 good handfuls of bindi
3 medium sized onions
3 large chilli
3 tomatoes
and a few of the usual spices!

to begin with fry the onions and chilli until caramalised in oil
mix into a paste a good pinch of turmeric, a good pinch and a half of chilli powder and again of dried coriander and salt and pepper to taste
by the time you have done this it is ready to add to the onions
prepare a generous handful of fresh coriander but don’t add it yet… wait…. first
add the tomatoes chopped give it a good stir…. and then
add the bindi (lady fingers)
cook for about 15 minutes (but keep an eye on it because they shouldn’t go mushy1)
then serve with japati

if you cannot find lady fingers in a market near you then you could always try this shop!!!….

flower makers simple curry

here’s a simple butter gravy that is good for almost anything you want to put with it!! amounts are always adjusted according to taste and which one of us is making it! we normally eat this about 10pm as it is cooler and much more enjoyable! it is normally served with japati, a flat bread very typical of this (and many other) regions. we eat without cutlery only using the japati and one hand depending on whether you are left handed or right handed! it is viewed as rude to eat with both, as so, the children learn at school one hand is for eating and the other for toilet! makes perfect sense!! portion size is by western standards small but a woman would normally have one or two japati and a cupcake size bowl of curry or as it is known here gravy and a man may have three or four japati and small amount of gravy.

one finger pinch of tumeric
large pinch of chilli
large pnch of masala
2 handfuls of finely chopped corriander
ginger the length of the top of your thumb
4 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper to taste
3 onions finely chopped
6 tomatoes finely chopped
3 fresh chilli
melted ghee or butter to cover the bottom of the pan and a bit more

plus whatever you would like to add to your “gravy” we add paneer which is a curd cheese but you can add vegetables or chicken

heat the ghee/butter to a high temperature so you see a blue ring aroound the edge. then add in the finely chopped onions and fry until light brown
add in the finely chopped fresh chillis
mix the spices into a paste with water and then add to the onions add the garlic, ginger and coriander
add the finely chopped tomatos and the masala powder
add in either the vegetables or the meat
add water according to the number of people you need it for
leave to cook down for about 20mins

we hope you enjoy!