Chelsea

One of our grand plans when we returned to the UK was to get out more.  This idea has been somewhat thwarted by the other half’s job re-location to Saudi, and while as an independent modern woman I am more than happy to do a lot of things on my own, sometimes it’s nice to have a bit of company.

Last year for my birthday daughter no 1 promised me tickets to this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.  The dates for Chelsea coincided with her graduation show so every effort was made to ensure the husband was home – and after an extended eight week stay in Saudi, he was.

We set off in great excitement.  The worse thing about living abroad for a few years is you forget just how bad a British summer can be.  You look back through rose tinted spectacles to barbeques that never really happened and days sat in deck chairs that in reality were nothing more than a five minute break with the cardigan off

I don’t think we could have picked a worse day to go to Chelsea. Friday afternoon, 9 degrees. I didn’t just need boots and a coat, I needed a hat, gloves and a scarf.

As we walked towards the Royal Hospital grounds we passed a wasteland of abandoned umbrellas. The show itself was awash with plastic ponchos, the grand pavilion full of bedraggled gardening enthusiasts, by nature a hardy lot, desperately trying to get out of the rain.

We saw all the show gardens – our tickets were for evening entry after the coach and day trippers had left for home and the crowd had thinned out.  We also saw Alan Titchmarsh – several times, in fact I think he was probably stalking us.  At least I now know where my licence fee goes – exactly how many lighting/camera/sound technicians does it take to make a TV programme? Far too many!

The carefully crafted and created displays were stunning and highly inventive.  I was pleased to see many of the gardens carried a cottage garden theme, in the planting if not in the rather structured design.  I felt rather chuffed that I too had planted aquilegia’s (columbines) in my own garden, as these really did seem to the flower of the show.

Stands and stalls were full of arty ideas for your garden, sculptures, ornaments, wonderful wicker furniture that to be honest, in this climate, no one is ever going to sit on unless it is permanently placed in doors.

After the show we decided not to head back to our B&B (or as we later discovered B & make your own B) to get changed, but headed straight for Sloane Square and the first restaurant we saw that looked like it had tables free.  Half an hour wait? Didn’t mind at all, as long as we could wait in the dry and in warm.

Bonding

The reason I haven’t written any new posts for a few weeks is not because I haven’t done anything to write about, but because of the gym thing –  something had to give. I was hoping it was going to be the housework but alas it appears to have been my creativity.

I've been busy, I've done loads I could have written about but no witty words have sprung to mind. I have swam lengths hoping for inspiration, I have pounded the treadmill and even my usual strolls along the river have failed to produce any literary greats. So I gave it a break.

Time is moving on and it is nearly a whole year since our return from the US. Do I miss that Californian sun?Just a tad.

The teenager has commenced her study leave for AS levels and I realise she is coming to the end of her first year of UK education.   She is learning to drive – yet again – and apparently managing well with the complications of a clutch and a stick shift, and tiny, winding narrow roads.  Teaching the teenager to drive in the US was a great mother and daughter bonding moment - but I'm not sure it would work that well over here. I've decided to let a professional driving instructor have that pleasure instead. 

Taking the teenager to the stage show of the Full Monty was a fun evening out and also good for bonding.  The bar tills malfunctioned in the interval and we had to gulp our glasses of wine down very quickly before returning to our seats but I think that only added to the overall experience. We also went shopping and to my great delight, now that the teenager is a working girl with money of her own, she actually  turned her back on the Jack Wills sweatpants with a comment of ‘I can buy those for half the price in H&M’. Exactly what I had been telling her for years.

We've decided we could also bond over the new Great Gatsby movie - it is one of my all time favourite books along with Tender is the Night. The teenager loves them both too, but will we be disappointed? Robert Redford will always be my Gatsby and I'm not so sure about Leonardo Dicaprico (who incidentally comes ahead of Leonardo di Vinci when I googled his name to correct the spelling - a sad sign of these shallow Hollywood times we live in.)

The arrival of the university prospectuses has also provided more bonding.  I hadn't realised that booking appointments for Open Days was such a competitive process - we have apparently left it 'quite late' and lots of  advertised talks and tours are already full. How can people be so organised?  I am starting to feel like an inadequate parent and need to get my super-school-mom uniform back on.  I need to FOCUS.  At the end of June we now have two early morning 6.00 am car journey starts to be on schedule for the only available slots  at 9.00 am.  Not something to look forward to. Perhaps I do need to fast track her driving lessons in the hope that if she passes her test before then she could always just go by herself......