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.

Week 8

Last week it was a war on storage. This week a war on paperwork and the amount of it that is currently coming through my letterbox regarding the Eastleigh by-election.  I think the Conservative Party have felled an entire forest in order to produce a daily bulletin extolling the virtues of their candidate.  I know she is local, and I know she is a ‘working’ mum with 4 children – this point is stressed in every pamphlet as if it should be main reason she deserves my vote. What  is it exactly that she works at? The omission of any specific job title makes me suspect she is a business woman earning mega-bucks. She’s obviously not a teacher, a doctor or a nurse, if that was the case her publicity machine would be crying it out from the rooftops. I suppose if I was that interested I would Google her to find out but to be honest, I’ve got better things to do. Several trips a day to the recycling bin are currently taking up my time.

Of the other dozen or so candidates all I know from the mountains of literature accumulating on the doormat is that they are all very good at slagging each other off. There are faults with all of them and it is becoming quite a dilemma. Who do I vote for?

The fact that I am even thinking about or debating this matter makes me realise I have too much time on my hands and I need to get busy. Having the teenager at home for half term has helped. I have to take her shopping for new shoes - always fun. I need to remember she has requested my presence on the shopping trip solely for my financial support - not my fashion advice. I must learn to keep quiet.

The sunshine has also fuelled my enthusiasm to get outdoors – the garden has been dug over, and is readily prepared awaiting the arrival of the landscaper who is going to aid my creative vision of horticultural heaven with the installation of a new patio and path. Hard landscaping should always be completed before any planting, according to my hero Alan Titchmarsh. I wish someone had told my sweet peas that. They need to stop growing. Religiously following the guidelines in my Gardener’s World magazine it said now was the time to sow sweet peas. I love sweet peas, they are one of my favourite flowers and I thought I would get ahead, sow the seeds indoors as per instructions, then have them ready to plant out around some fancy French rustic obelisk as soon as the new garden was ready.

However within a matter of 48 hours the seeds had germinated and are now romping way ahead of schedule in scenes reminiscent of Jack & the Beanstalk. These are not sweat peas, these are triffids and they are going to need planting outside long before the garden is ready.  What have I done to them – not enough light, too much light, have I deprived them of water or given them too much?

If one of those by-election candidates could actually do something useful and put some gardening advice into their leaflets, I might well be tempted to get out there and vote.