The Archive

Darling buds

It being a Saturday afternoon and me living just over the river from Chelsea, what can a man do but the obvious, manly Saturday afternoon thing?

That's right, I went to the flower show today.

Now normally I must admit that I wouldn't pay thirty five quid to go to a glorified garden centre. And today was no exception. Hollander had provided a couple of freebies, so we thought it would be worth a look.

The first sign that we were approaching the show was when we saw a large mound of greenery moving towards us down the pavement, looking like some kind of low-budget triffid.

It turns out it was a woman in a wheelchair who had clearly only been invited by the woman pushing the wheelchair in order to function as a sort of supermarket trolley with more reliable wheels.

Either that or the old dear was reliving her days as a sniper with the parachute regiment and had got carried away with the camoflage.

The other indication that you are close to the show is the sudden demographic shift from a standard assortment of age groups and ethnicities to an all-white, blue rinsed monoculture.

We were, by about fifteen years, the youngest people there aside from a couple of other freak youngsters including someone I'm pretty sure was only there to scout for talent for the next Miss Marple. Make no mistake, this was Thora Hird country - a show for people taking a weekend out of their busy schedule visiting national trust properties and wearing sensible hats to buy a range of greenery of mind-boggling variety.

The main shed area was a bit dull, but the outside was very cool.

Because all the visitors to the show clearly owned huge properties in the home counties and baronial mansions, there was an amazing range of statuary and buildings to put in your garden available to purchase, or have your butler purchase for you.

I'm pretty sure I saw one conservatory that was actually bigger than my flat.

Best of all, though, were the surprising number of stands offering heraldic statues designed to go at the end of your (inevitably) long, winding gravel drive, flanking the entrance gates and providing a grandeur to impress any visiting Viscount.

So obviously I picked up a couple of boars rampant (as i am a rampant bore it seemed appropriate) for Bullenpissen Towers.

I can't wait for the flatmates to see them.

So, all in all, quite interesting. So if you get free tickets, check it out.

If, however, you have a spare £35 and an afternoon to kill, get yourself half a dozen bottles of supermarket wine and get down to the park with a friend.

posted by Peter The Great @ 8:10 PM