Morning, all. I've woken up to a thoroughly wet garden (three cheers) that looks a bit dismal in the early morning light but it also looks cheerful and well hydrated. No need to water for a few days now, that's for sure.
I don't know about here, but over Hampton Court way, there were two horrendous downpours, accompanied by lightning and high winds in the afternoon and I bet there was more later too. Round here, the roads were soaking and puddly so I am presuming much the same.
Anyway, back to yesterday morning. I got to the picking up point nice and early, as I always to to make sure I get a spot handy for getting out afterwards!
Such a coincidence - the lady I sat next to lives in the house backing onto mine (with a walk through between) and her children were at the school at the same time as mine - I remember the names and I think the girl might have been in my choir but it's a very long time ago.
And on the coach was a couple, the lady of whom was a dinner lady and another lady whose son I taught in Y1.
On to the photos: I'm glad to have them because . . . well, I'll explain that later.
There were a number of display areas that were not proper garden setups, just garden centre displays. As it was last day, display plants were for sale, to be picked up at 4:30 - no good for us as we were due to leave at that time.
I won't inflict too many plant/flower photos, but there were some stunning ones. These were part of a huge display of lilies and the impact was stunning.
One of the many entertainments was a children's singing group called We Are The Voice.
They sing about climate, the environment and caring for the planet and they were lovely. I grabbed a chair and listened to them for ages. Not choir-y voices, just honest to goodness children's voices, singing from the heart.
Memorable.
You can see that it was a pretty cloudy morning, comfortably cool. People were picnicking along the Long Water and there was even a posh stall selling Fortnum and Mason picnic hampers. I didn't even ask the price!!
There were loads of interesting looking food stalls of all kinds, street food rather than purely fast food. I didn't - but I did enjoy a very nice (and very expensive) double scoop ice cream! Naughty but nice.
There were some very interesting planted 'gardens'.
This one was really pretty .
People were queueing to go in and look round so I didn't bother.
Of course, I hit the Home and Lifestyle area good and hard, of course. There were some lovely stalls; nothing craft based in the sense of make-it-myself stuff, but there was some beautiful stuff.
All these flowers are crocheted, would you believe? They were just amazing!
A close up. Wow.
I did ask if there were patterns for sale but no such luck!
This is all hand embroidery. It almost looked like a photograph.
Unsurprisingly, it was well outside my price range - £4,500! Eeek.
Mind you, fair enough - there was some extremely skilled and detailed work going on.
If I ever win big on my premium bonds, that's the sort of thing I will indulge in. Things like that and there was also some lovely garden sculpture sort of stuff, stone carvings in organically flowing shapes. I'd be concerned about leaving them in the garden, the value of some of them. They're the sort of thing you design a whole garden around.
Not hand sewn, I think, but so detailed. This was a bed cover - beautiful but too heavy for me.
There was also some very lovely jewellery on a number of stalls.
I was looking for something nice for my friend, Diane, who is eighty this month, and I found my main gift to her. I won't show it here in case she sees it but I so hope she likes it.
There were food and drink stalls in abundance, mostly with nibbles to try (one reason why I didn't go for any kind of lunch) and they were very popular indeed.
I indulged!
There were loads of garden equipment stalls and I was greatly tempted by a composter that makes your garden compost in eight to ten weeks. You know what I mean - it's a kind of barrel that you rotate now and again to accelerate the composting process. I am seriously thinking about it. Do any of you have one? How do you find it?
(photo borrowed from the Amazon site)
And then there was the weather.
We had a very sudden and severe downpour around lunch time. I was under an avenue of trees so it wasn't so bad, even when the wind got up for a brief time. I was lucky.
Then the sun came out again and all was lovely.
Until . . .
As we were queueing for the shuttle bus to take us out to the coach park, it started again, a proper storm with high winds that our macs and brollies could not completely protect us from.
My jeans were soaked, my shoes were like fish ponds (minus the fish!), my bags got drenched but my top half was almost dry so I suppose they did offer a bit of protection. It's not nice squelching along in sodden shoes and socks!
Along came the shuttle bus, we got back to the coach park and out came the sun again. Typical!
When I go home, I sorted out my wet contents. Fortunately, the gift seems to have been well protected but everything else was wet - the wrappings, I mean. Inside my back bag was very damp although the phone worked OK. Not so the camera though and earlier this morning it was still not opening properly. As it happens, my laptop has a card reader so I was able to get the photos off. I've just tried again and it has opened so fingers crossed.
Apart from the rain, it was absolutely lovely at the Flower Show. I'll go again next year, if there's a trip organised. Next time, I will probably take my fold up trolley for plants because there were a few I would have bought. They had those trolleys for sale but I already have two that I used for school and really didn't want another.
So - fingers crossed re the camera and I'm considering the compost maker - or something similar; I know there are cheaper ones. Any advice?
The next coach trip is at the end of July to Brighton. Fingers crossed for good weather - please . . .
Edit: I got my fridge magnet. Not a Hampton Court one, a RHS flower show one. Perfect.