Flowers for brightening a dull winter afternoon

It's 20 degrees Farenheit in my neighborhood, with snow on the ground. Earlier today, alone in the house and sorely missing my flower garden, I cruised the web to find some comforting photos and videos. I stumbled across these gorgeous pics of a cottage garden in Alaska and then found this video of a garden in Devonshire England:




As you can imagine, those lovely images banished most of my ennui. But what really cheered me up was being surprised by my hunk o' burnin' love, who came home cherry-cheeked from zipping around town in his topless MG Midget and dropped a snugly-wrapped bundle of cream-colored roses on my desk.

And here they are. Sorry about the jacket slung over the chair, the stack of garden catalogues, and that dribble of tomato soup (lower right); I'm afraid this is a typical Saturday-afternoon look for our kitchen table. And yes, the vase is too similar to the tablecloth, but these roses are going to my office just as soon as I give it a few licks with the feather duster and the vacuum cleaner.

If any of you are shopping for bridal bouquets, the creamy roses are Vindela and the antique-looking ones are Sahara. They're both imported from Ecuador.