I’ve always been surrounded by flowers. Our family garden was always overflowing with a profusion of colour and every kind of plant. Hydrangeas, gardenias, agapanthus, roses, lavenders, azaleas and geraniums, as well as numerous perennials. Every season new seedlings would be planted. Poppies, zinnias, petunias, primulas, pansies and sweet peas.

As my mother for many years volunteered to arrange our local church flowers she always had a constant supply, if there was not sufficient in her garden, there were always friend’s gardens that she could raid.

Because of this, my earliest paintings as a child, were birthday cards adorned with flowers that would be given to my mother, grandmothers and aunts.

I feel this love of flowers has always drawn me to visit flower markets whenever I’m visiting a town or city, especially the one in  Columbia Road, London . Flower markets in India were always a fascination as the women would sit on the ground creating flower garlands and small flower sacrifices to float in the rivers.

Another very enjoyable experience is to wander through garden shows and see the amazing displays created by landscape gardeners. This year whilst in in U.K I spent the day soaking up the best of English flowers at the Hampton Court Flower Show.