Those of you paying attention may recall that I began my last blogpost with the phrase “This is a bit weird”.

Well.

Loath though I am to repeat myself I must say again: this is a bit weird. I am beginning this blog while sitting on an aeroplane many thousands of feet up . I am happily ensconced in the Business Class cabin for the first time in my life (i) with nice Ladies offering me champagne at 9.00 in the morning.

I am the only passenger. Yes, there are various people on the other side of the curtain but in this bit I am the only one.

The nice Ladies are becoming increasingly insistent in their attempts to make me drink champagne.I fear they may be disappointed in me, their only charge.I imagine my parents have, on occasion, felt the same way but for different reasons. It is a strangely embarrassing experience to be the sole focus of two stewardesses and a breakfast menu that includes fruit jelly.

Why am I on this aeroplane?

Because I am going to judge at the Moscow Flower Show.

It was a very wonderful few days where lots happened: I think the easiest way is to give you a list: otherwise your patience will be sorely tried.

Tuesday:

The approach to Moscow airport is covered in trees. Birches mainly and every so often there is a clearing full of little Dachas. The Heathrow equivalent would be as if somebody had reforested Staines.

I have met up with Nina (who some of you will know from Malvern)

The traffic is ghastly: like Saigon but with Range Rovers instead of motorbikes.

Quick change and then even more  traffic (involving crawling past our destination, driving another half mile, doing a U turn and driving back again)

Arrive at Gorky Park in time for the Gala opening of  the show.

Saw a lot of very pretty girls with cheekbones and long legs (all of them younger than my daughter) many of them wearing dresses made of flowers.

More nice ladies tried to make me drink champagne. They were again disappointed

Talked to various people in Russian. At least they talked in Russian while I nodded and smiled.

Had my photograph taken a lot of times. (ii)

Ended up in a restaurant in the middle of Gorky Park whose tables consisted of tented awnings. Like eating dinner in a four poster bed.

Am surrounded by women. Am perfectly content.

Wednesday:

This place is exhausting.

Ate an interesting sausage and a sort of pancakey thing made of cream cheese and flour for breakfast.

Got a cab to the show,invented some judging criteria, judged twenty show gardens in the company of more gloriously mad Russian women.

Gave an interview to Russian television (about 2:20ish) (iii)

Gave two more interviews to magazines

Ate more interesting sausage (this time with Aubergine and peppers)

Woke up, had a shower, got dressed (you probably don’t need such a level of detail)

Went back to the show

Met the Moscow Minister of Culture

Ate rather delicious Bready things stuffed with onion and egg

This is my name in Russian: Джеймс Александр-Синклер

Attended a concert by Dutch Youth Orchestra

Left concert to show minister around flower show

Gave an interview to the “Russian Alan Titchmarsh” (his words)

Minister did not show.

Did three pieces to camera for Russian television on subject of Gardening and the soul

Took off shoes and walked barefoot on turf with blonde presenter

Drove to Red Square

Looked at Kremlin,St Basil’s Cathedral etc

Drove to Georgian Restaurant, ate cheese based dinner, got serenaded (beautifully) by Georgian musicians.

Went to bed at about 1:30.

I may have missed out a couple of things.

Thursday:

Breakfasted on more interesting sausage.

Went to a nunnery and place of pilgrimage,saw hundreds of people queuing, looked at icons

Genuflected before undecayed body of saint,

Collected holy water

Drove to show, judged ten balconies, two more gardens and assorted nurseries.

Gave interview to florists magazine

Chaired judging moderation

Gave interview to some Radio station

Made a speech to assembled multitude on subject of roses

Gave interview to Russian website

Ate beef stroganoff while watching beach volleyball

Walked across bridge, went on Metro, avoided sharp rain shower.

Went to hotel, packed, changed, went back on metro, walked around Moscow looking at buildings (accompanied by interpreter/minder: foreigners are not really trusted out on their own as we might get lost/mugged)

Went to Lancôme drinks reception

Get photographed with ridiculously beautiful girls (again)

Got slightly dampened by the dancing fountains.

Eat ice cream, go back to hotel.

Friday:

Get cab at 4:00am to airport

Struggle through mass of humanity

Encounter very aloof officials, eat cheese, get on aeroplane

Eat fishy thing, sleep fitfully, watch bits of The Wild Geese, realise with a sinking heart that the temperature in London is 10 degrees less than Moscow and it is raining.

Go home.

Go to bed.

I had a fantastic time, was beautifully looked after and cannot wait to go back. I will write about the actual gardens next time as I feel this post is long enough for even the most attentive among you.

I am listening to Leonard Cohen singing Bird on a Wire, or close to singing as he ever gets. The picture is of watering cans.

(i) I know, it is a bit sad that a man of my age should never have ventured beyond Economy. Probably best if  I don’t get used to it.

(ii) Russians like being photographed. Very much. I, on the other hand, am not that keen for reasons previously stated mostly to do with general gnarliness and vanity. I am particularly unhappy about being photographed with the very glamorous. However, Russians take it very seriously: for example a couple wander through show, spot a (for example) metal elk, she goes and stands by elk while he holds camera. Rather than just standing there smiling slightly awkwardly she then goes into full, pouty, glamour model posing. Lots of tits and teeth, body angled just so, hands in hair etc etc. Wonderfully un-British.

(iii) It is very refreshing to do things on foreign language television. It does not matter what sort of fudge you make of your words as you know they are going to dub whatsoever they wish over your moving lips.

More aeroplanes this week although pretty much everything about Flybe is better than Ryan Air.

The seats were more comfortable and upholstered in a dove grey leatherette, there were pockets in the seat in front.

The aeroplane had propellors which is strangely comforting as that way you know whether the engines have stopped before landing.

The stewardesses smile and their hairstyles are much more freeform. One had tailored wisps that fall in front of her ears and look a little like the cheek pieces on a Roman helmet: but softer and less impervious to arrows or glancing sword blows.

Nobody has yet tried to sell me smokeless cigarettes or lottery cards.

It was a bit bumpy though.

And I wonder why there should be so much fuss about life jackets on a flight from Birmingham to Glasgow I would have thought we were more likely to hit a Pennine or at the very least a branch of Matalan just outside Salford than water. Perhaps “Your crash helmet is beneath your seat” would be a more useful catchphrase. Or “A blank Last Will and Testament Form will fall from the panel above your head”.

I have been to Glasgow in the company of Toby Buckland, Chris Collins (the Blue Peter gardener), the utterly delicious Aggie McKenzie (the less intimidating Scottish one from ‘How Clean is my House’) and Craig off of Big Brother (1) to compete in Celebrity Eggheads. This is an early evening Quiz Show of whose existence I was blissfully unaware until quite recently. In it a team of people compete against the Eggheads who are a collection of people who have won every Quiz show around. There are winners of Mastermind, Brain of Britain, Fifteen To One and various others. They undoubtedly have a great deal of general trivia stored between their ears but I am not sure if I would like to be stuck in a lift with any of them for too long. One of them reads and memorises the cast lists of television programmes in the Radio Times but never watches anything.

Still, it is one of those things that come along every so often that should never be refused. We were the Celebrity (2) House and Garden team.

I think I am probably not supposed to announce the result here but, we did not completely disgrace ourselves and you will have to wait until around Christmastime for it to be broadcast. In the meantime watch out for Martyn Cox and the Horticulture Week team who I think are probably transmitted before us.

The BBC building in Glasgow is super -duper impressive. There is also another fine building across the canal

that looked a bit like shiny croissant. The experience was pretty terrifying all in all but I am glad I did it as these things only come along every so often and it would be silly not to go along for the experience. Our team name, by the way, was Marigolds and Mortar.

So back to the airport, back on another aeroplane and back to Birmingham. I think that Toby and Craig might be long lost brothers. They also both look quite likeMarkD, maybe they are the long lost triplet heirs to the Czar.

Other interesting things this week include a new client and the solving of a particularly tricky Ha Ha problem.

I also participated in a Gardeners Question time in aid of BYHP – a very fine local charity. I am not at my most comfortable in such situations as my mind goes blank when asked about non-bolting Coriander seed or the best plants for a sunny border. Most of my questions required me to recommend the felling of a large tree. I also ran an auction whose lots included a stuffed Peter Rabbit the size of a pert Red Setter (which I sold for £220, thank you very much).

I also gave a troupe of design savvy ladies and gents a personal tour around this garden, it was quite nerve wracking as one of the participants was Mary Keen, doyenne and grande dame of garden design. I feared her quizzical eye but actually she is just as delicious as Aggie McKenzie ( although in a slightly different way). They asked good questions some of which I was unable to answer satisfactorily.

And finally, just to keep the hard core of deluded people who come to this Blog for horticultural wisdom I planted a small garden. This was commissioned as a place in which the client could inter the ashes of a number of dogs and a horse. The ashes of a horse, incidentally, fit into a surprisingly small box. It is part of a larger garden but I decided to go annual and bright so, for those who like a plantlist, these are the ingredients:

Tithonia rotundifolia

Cosmos Dazzler

Nicotiana sylvestris

Dahlia Jescott Julie

Dahlia Rip City

Dahlia Ambition

Dahlia Sam Hopkins

Dahlia Hillcrest Royal

Calmagrostis Karl Foerster

Ligusticum lucidum

Ammi majus

Thymus Silver Posie

Cornflowers (Blue)

I am off to Gardeners World Live at the NEC in Birmingham for five days tomorrow: I am running the Celebrity Theatre with proper garden celebrities like Ms Klein and Messrs Titchmarsh, Buckland and Don. And Alys. And the bald gingery one.

And on Sunday Dawn is doing clever things with herbs and hanging children in baskets. So if you are there please come and say hello.

The picture is of Seseli libanotis, Phlomis tuberosa Amazone and the fading flowers of Allium Purple Sensation.

I am listening to the Concerto in E Flat for Trumpet and Orchestra by Haydn and Hummel. Played by Alison Balsom. Which makes a sophisticated change from the fabulous Bert Kaempfert who seems to have been rather dominating my listening recently. (3)

PS I am assuming that most of you have seen the new Three Men Went To Mow but, just in case, here it is….

(1) and also, until they got bored and wandered off, a number of stray Twitterers

(2)I fully appreciate that this is stretching the elastic of the word “Celebrity” to its very limit. As my ever supportive friend, Mark Diacono, sweetly put it: “For Celebrity: Read Available and cheap”. He might be right but is more likely eaten up with envy as he did not get the chance to show off his extensive knowledge of darts and guavas.

(3) If any of you are unfamiliar with the oeuvre of Mr K then may I point you here.