Realistic roses and blooms on the upper back

The carnations came later, from the Trevail boys, who dug them out of their mother's bed and chucked them over the fence in a sack. Dolly said they were common, then planted them anyway, right where the roses leaned. Green things went everywhere. The buds swelled hard and dark as plums, and nobody could say which would open first. The blue-grey stick that ran through the middle was a bit of old pram handle she'd found in the ditch, and she swore it kept the whole arrangement from falling over.

Then the council wanted the wall gone for a turning space, and the digger came on a Tuesday. Dolly stood in the lane in her apron with her arms out until the driver gave up and went for his tea. Nobody here thinks she won, but she got the roses moved, every last one, into forty-odd pots that are still in Ruth's back garden.

So raise your glass to the bloom that refused to be bulldozed. Mind your sleeve, Maureen, there's a petal caught in the cuff.