I am sitting in the Novotel at Grand Designs, well not exactly at Grand Designs but very close.
There are a number of interesting things happening at the show including the customary handsome display of hot tubs. I am running a very smart Garden Design studio with my name on a big yellow cube dangling from the ceiling.
The form is that there are four newly qualified garden designers giving free consultations while I hover and offer sage advice when required. All very jolly, you can come and take advantage of all this if you hurry: the show runs until Sunday night and Three Men are cavorting on stage in the afternoon.
The Novotel meanwhile has surprised me. My first impression was that it was the sort of place where former communist apparatchiks would come to drink themselves stupid, cavort with doughy thighed good time girls and, in certain cases, fling themselves from windows. Actually it is quiet, cleanish and has a view of the Victoria dock. The breakfast, however, is utterly loathsome: in particular the scrambled eggs.
After Sunday there is Malvern to look forward to next week. This will be my seventh Malvern (I think) in which time it has changed a great deal. This year there is more serious side to the show as the theme of Biodiversity runs through the things that are happening in the theatre: this leaves no room for Joe Swift and I to do flower arranging. This will doubtless come as a huge relief to the ranks of Floral Artists out there as we did little to promote high standards in the world of competitive floristry. Instead there will be wise words from Matthew Wilson and Jekka McVicar (on Thursday), Chris Beardshaw (on Friday), Joe Swift (on Saturday) and Mike Dilger and Terry Walton (on Sunday).
I will be flitting around doing links and other stuff including an interview with Sue Biggs on Friday morning: she is, as I am sure you know, the Director General of the RHS and a thoroughly good egg. If you wish to ask searching questions about the future of the organisation then this is the place to be – hecklers welcome.
We also have a book slot where I chat to various garden writers and you get the chance to buy signed copies of their glossy ouevres. Included are the Guardian Royal Bouquet correspondent, Lia Leendertz. Martyn Cox (who writes a couple of books a week), Noel Kingsbury (also very prolific but with a Phd: Martyn just has a gelled forelock),) Anne Wareham who will talk about her book -The Bad Tempered Gardener – which is opinionated and alternately annoying and amusing (a bit like picking a scab) and Mark “Veg Head” Diacono whose book, the Taste of the Unexpected, is quite old now but still very readable(ii)
I am exhausted already. I am hoping that there will be various bloggers and Twitterati loafing about as well.
I have also found some time this week to visit Arundel. Rather a pretty town with a castle and softly flowing river overlooked by gentle Sussex countryside blah, blah, blah. There is also a rather remarkable garden belonging to the Duke of Norfolk and designed by Julian and Isabel Bannerman.
My visit was quite fleeting so this will not be any more than a quick postcard but, in brief: Trademark whopping oak structures, some very floaty planting (excluding a rather ugly variegated elder at one point) and some spectacular fountains including a dancing coronet – a gold crown rotating on top of a high power jet of water surrounded by exquisite shell work.
Proper Bannerman showmanship in other words. Beautifully constructed, theatrical and exciting.
There is, however, a strange arrangement of rock and palm trees sitting in the middle of a grass labyrinth which I really could not fathom. Why was it there? It seemed like a step too far. There may well be a perfectly logical explanation but it looked cluttered and detracted from both surroundings and labyrinth. I must do some research to discover what is going on.
I am listening to the gentle hum of the air conditioning as I cannot work out how to open the window, nor can I understand the taps. There seems to be no clear indication which way is hot and which way cold so I am skittering between third degree burns and hypothermia. At the risk of sounding like a disgruntled old Colborn: what is wrong with having one tap labelled ‘Hot’ and one ‘Cold’.
The picture is of ants on peony buds.
(i) I was reminded by @nicelittleplace on Twitter the other day that the abbreviative noun for a group of floral artists is Flarts. As is “Over there is the Flart tent”. This is not intended to be at all pejorative but merely affectionate. The other acronym is for the Chris Beardshaw Scholarship Gardens who are known as the CBeebies.
(ii) It also has many other uses for those who have been given a copy as a gift but prefer not to read such stuff. For example, as a chopping board, a waterproof hat, a partially effective cricket box, a frisbee, an oven glove and a way of ironing out unruly body hair. It has also just been nominated for yet another award (yawn) this time by the Guild of Food Writers. I think it unlikely that any of the other authors (not even Anne) are in the running for that one. Bravo.
Hi James, was hoping to get along to GD Live but alas work and wine got in the way, I will however be along to Malvern so will save up all my good heckles for there.
I too was recently in Arundel and although I didnt get to see the garden featured the “villagers” do tend there more humble plots rather well making it a very pretty if a little twee
Had to laugh at the recent G.I profile photo, you look as though you have just got away with telling a very rude joke to the Queen. Talking of which did you get an invite last week? And was that the real reason for your stay in the “pay-by-the-hour” Novotel? .
See you at Malvern.
On the contrary, I was guffawing because the queen had just told me a very off colour joke.
You have to laugh in such circumstances.
Hello James, am looking forward to seeing you at Malvern. It will be my first. x x
About time too. See you there, be prepared it could be very hot, very cold or very wet.
Nobody likes a proofreader, but as the sentence in question otherwise has a feel of literary greatness, I felt I should mention that ouevres = oeuvres (as in oeuf). I have also been known to scrape misplaced apostrophes from public signs.
Sheila Averbuch – Stopwatch Gardener
I like (although remain unconvinced) by your analysis of literary greatness.
In my defence it was late at night and I was inna Novotel in the back end of docklands.
Is that sufficient mitigation to excuse misspellings?
I don’t think anyone noticed but me. Words with too many consecutive vowels are asking for it.
Sheila Averbuch – Stopwatch Gardener.
Totally intrigued by the dancing coronet.
And since coronets might be a tad inappropriate for those of us who are not dukes, have been trying to figure out substitutes for the hoi polloi. Upside-down strainer? Welded assemblages of cogs? Heavily starched undergarments?
Also wondering what happens in a strong wind or sudden power outage. Is there a counter-revolutionary safety net?
It is inside a large shell lined oaken folly so wind is not a problem. In case of power failure it falls, tinkling, to the floor.
Alternatives include hollowed out grapefruit halves, bike helmets and(in certain cases) eggshells
Do you get to keep the yellow cube afterwards?
I was offered it but it is the size of a (large non weatherproof) shed its uses outside Grand Designs are strictly limited.
I like that cube with your name on it. I think you should take it home, otherwise it’ll only end up in a skip. Make it your ambition to own a home with a room big enough for it to act as a not-out-of-place lampshade. My book also serves very well as a makeshift float for the non-swimming members of your faily…for half a width at least
SALVAGE NOT SKIPS! I do hope you lugged it home on the train. Plus, oversized furniture can look wonderful in very small rooms (to a point). I could have redesigned it into a cube chair for you.
ho hum.
trying to make it to Malvern – really depends on the amount of work I get done today and tomorrow, which means I should not be on here really. right. off. now.
I don’t think you are fully understanding exactly how vast this cube was: you could set up a comfortable buffet inside the darn thing.
You could sleep a family of four with room for their dog.
The skip would easily fit inside the cube.
You see my problem?
Hope to see you at Malvern.
If you hammer a number of six inch nails through your book it makes a convenient stool for visiting fakirs.
There are many signs that May is here, but without doubt the most reliable is when a certain behatted garden designer begins flitting from show to show and stage to stage.
I presume you won’t be home again until August.
I am like a a fair weather traveller. Harnessing up my caravan and hawking my wares around the place.
This year I am selling lucky heather and home whittled clothes pegs.
As well as left over tarmac.
I have cube like that in front of my workplace but it’s not my name on it. I really would like to have one but you already have it, and i think you have to keep it somewhere to make you proud of your work when you see it.