Oops I just realised that I have a knife in my pocket.
This is usually fine but less so when boarding an aeroplane – fortunately it is a blunt airside one inadvertently filched from the Air Canada lounge and now on its way to Vancouver (I left it in an overhead locker to avoid any awkward questions.)
Let no one tell you that international travel is trouble free – I have just been stuck in a lift in Terminal Two at Heathrow. It was not for very long, I did not need to press the alarm and we were a long way away from husky firemen with angle grinders passing energy bars through a hole in the roof. But it did give me a short moment of anxiety. The lift announced that it was on the second floor but the doors did not open.
There was clanking and the odd whirr. Then silence. Then more clanking. Silence. A flashing red light. I began to worry about missing a flight and which corner of the lift would be best suited to being the “toilet corner”. Then Ipushed another button and after another quick clank we returned to the ground floor.
After that I took the stairs.
The plane taxied off to the runway and then taxied all the way back again. We then have an inaudible announcement? sounds as if the flight has been cancelled but fortunately not. Then eight armed policemen marched on, gathered up a very stoned woman and hustled her off the plane so now we have been sitting here for two and a half hours .
There is a cumulative effect on these things – it is the butterfly flapping its wings and causing a tornado but more irritating than catastrophic. Three hours delay means a panicky connection with much running and barging. It also means both my book and my headphones falling out and never being recovered- really irritating. Particularly annoying is the book as it is an old favourite by Louis de Bernieres called The War of Don Emmanuel’s Netherparts. I have not read it for twenty years and wanted it to be my companion on this short tour.
Yes, I am on tour. We begin in Victoria, transfer to Seattle and then come back again to Vancouver. I am delivering five talks and looking at various gardens so all jolly – and hopefully not as fraught and frantic as day one. Or is it Day two. I am already lost.
So I am staying with a truly delightful person called Lynn. One always worries a bit on these trips when not put into a hotel as you have no idea at all whether you are going to end up with a psychopath or, as happened on one occasion, the weirdest people in the area. Fortunately this time I have struck lucky and we have had a high old time. We have hiked through dripping forests (including a detour to a noted viewing spot from which we could see precisely nothing as it was so foggy) eaten chips by the sea and I even attended her mother’s 93rd birthday party along with all the rest of her family.
Sunday is work day. I am part of a line up off speakers at the Victoria Hardy Plant Study Day. Lots of nice people eager to pick up useful information about gardens. There was also a lot of tray bakes so definitely my kind of day.
Monday we walk dogs and then I am given a swift drive around Victoria,. The sun shines the Acers gleam and the firs rustle.
In the afternoon I board the Clipper Ferry which is whisking me as I write towards Seattle and more talks. I was a bit worried about US Immigration and in my more troubled and jet lagged moments I imagined being whisked off to a remote ICE facility and becoming bitter to a heavily tattooed Salvadorean gangster. It has not (yet) happened and all they did was require an extra £30 for crossing a land border (if you fly in then that £30 is tacked onto your airline ticket). The sun sets as we tootle across to the Puget sound. We pass a large US warship , some cormorants, a lighthouse and absolutely no visible Orcas.
Seattle is always fun – I am whisked around by Nita-Jo who is the very glamorous big cheese of the Northern Horticultural Society. My job is to deliver two talks and in the downtime I am taken off to see some of the best gardens in the West Coast. The last time I was here was in February which is not the best month for garden visits (unless you are in Australia) so this time we had fluttery subshine snd lots if autumn colour. The Miller Garden was first – endowed by the hugely rich, chain smoking garden enthusiast Betty Miller, then Heronswood and finishing up at Dan Hinkley’s garden at Windcliffe. Dan is a delight, his plants are amazing. It is very annoying that I can’t bring some of the ones that are unobtainable in the UK (most of them) back with me. Especially this grass, Carex Fine China which is completely charming and looks like buried mop tops.
The next day (Thursday) we go to visit the Amazon Spheres. These are in downtown Seattle and surrounded by enormous buildings full of Amazonians. The spheres are these glass domes stuffed with exciting plants the names of which I do not know, the most functional green walls in the work, some invisible frogs and lots of little “break out areas”. Their purpose is to afford Amazon employees a place to come and do whatever they do on their laptops or have meetings or eat doughnuts amongst the plants. It is very spectacular.
After that we want for lunch and are ice cream. Strawberry and black pepper for me and chocolate brownie milk shake with extra shots of chocolate. I was really not expecting that from Nita-Joe.
I am not going to do a big garden review thing as it will take to long and as it is unlikely that anyone will ever read this ramble then it seems a bit pointless. Last time I was here (in 2020) there were whispers of a mysterious disease taking out old people – hopefully all will be okay this time.
Friday: I am on a very comfortable train heading to Vancouver. We are whizzing past inlets (someone in the seat behind me saw an eagle catching a fish – I didn’t), farmland, snow topped mountains and a load of forest. The driver keeps sounding his horn. I don’t know why – perhaps there are deer on the line.
Or bison.
Would be even better if the sun was shining a bit.
I arrive in Vancouver where both the sky and the sea are unremittingly grey. It is interesting but not fearfully picturesque! The hotel in which I am staying looks out over a beach which is lovely except that, as it is a Friday, there are lots of very loud youth whooping it up a bit. It is Halloween tomorrow so this may just be the beginning…
Saturday dawns bright and beautiful which means, of course, that I have to go and give talks to the fine people of Vancouver in the lightless basement of the Planetarium. We pop out at lunchtime to eat salmon sandwiches and try and be heard over the noise of a steel crab shaped water feature. Once the symposium has fully symposed I am whisked across the city for Halloween celebrations. There are people (old and young) dressed to the nines. Where I am going there is a street with pretty spectacular decorations which attracts about 1,000 children over the evening. My job is to stand at the top of the steps and slide Kit Kats, Aeros and other things down a chute where they are scooped up and bagged by the attendant children. It. I s fun: especially the mini boxes of Smarties that acquires enough velocity to jump out of the chute.
The final indignity is that I have been downgraded! I seldom fly long distances but, when I do, I feel that my advanced age means that I can fly at least Premium Economy. So there I am settling in quietly when a bloke comes up and tells me that a business class seat has broken and I have been selected to give up my seat so that the business class passenger has somewhere to go so I have no choice but to retreat to Economy class to spend an uncomfortable eight hours feeling lightly resentful.
As they say: the best thing about travel is the coming home.
Thew main picture is from an exhibition by Christopher Marley in Seattle.