Thursday 29 May 2008

22nd May Off to Chelsea




Today dd and I sneaked a day off and hightailed it up to the Chelsea Flower Show. I made a really strong decision NOT to buy anything! And in fact I was prety good, a pair of small topiary shears for my box hedging (mainly because dh always leaves his so blunt I can't use them) Oh and some hyacinth bulbs for nest spring. I have a thing about hyacinths, they smell so gorgeous and pop up out of no-where just before evrything else. I got a deep blue and a very strong pink to go with the pale pink and white I got last year. Somehow we have developed a routine when we go to the show, straight to the big marquee and David Austin roses, the Caribbean stands, roses, pinks, the dutch bulbs, delphiniums and orchids. The scent in there is fantastic you just breath flowers, and it never seems too crowded, it's easy to see everything and talk to the stand holders. I took a mangled sample flower with me and the lovely man at David Austin gave me a name for it in seconds - and a quick lecture on its history! Naturally we had to have a glass of Pimms, it wouldn't be Chelsea without that! However we took sandwiches this year, the restaurants are SO expensive and take ages. This was my second trip to London in a week, last week I went up for the Romantic Novelists Annual Summer party at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers Library in Birdcage Walk. A huge impressive building full of gossiping novelists. I caught up with lots of old friends I hadn't seen for some time and really enjoyed it.