Well Llanover Garden School, Wales was great. Had a lovely day with a super crowd talking shrubs. Not surprising I suppose - Skimmia 'Kew Green' was a favourite - but then it does have the advantage of a delicious scent. Anna Pavord was taking the afternoon session - would have loved to stay but needed to wend our way home. Elizabeth Murray was a great hostess and really hope to be back at Llanover one day.
This week I have been talking Chelsea Inspirations on the centres, along with other members of the Chelsea team. Primarily about plants the talk seems to have gone down well ,and people have loved hearing about Chelsea favourites like acers and cornus, and also what's new. Of the new (er) plants Digitalis 'Serendipity' has been favourite.
On the centres new aromatics - as we call them - arrived this week. Wonderful thymes, sages lavenders and rosemaries. These made some lovely "Chelsea" combinations with various dianthus hybrids such as the fimbriated (good word) sugary pink 'Fizzy'.
On wednesday evening I was at Bath University Gardening Club - BUG as it's known. As I was at Uni at Bath the whole thing was rather a nostalgia trip so I was glad to have a very lively audience that filled the lecture theatre. It was a great night taling 'Losing the Plot'.
Thursday I was at The Sir Harold Hillier Gardens - a glorious sunny day running a course on Guiding a Garden for the Institute of Tourist Guiding. I had around 25-30 Blue Badge guides for a lecture in the morning and then a tour of the gardens in the afternoon. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it and it revved up my enthusiasm for leading garden tours. Told the guys at the gym I was running a course for Club Reps - I think their vision of the day was very different from the reality!
After all the excitement of being out and about it's been back to reality with a bang! Catching up on progress with Chelsea plans and sorting out materials. Apparently the BBC are not giving us any pre-filming this year (once again). The Olympics is not a theme they are following - why would you? In 2012? Anyway lets hope we get some coverage at the show - although I must say I'm not holding my breath. When we worked with Skandia and The British Sailing team it was one of our best blockbuster exhibits and it got nothing in the way of TV coverage. We are however going to be allowed to have some fencing demos on the exhibit when the show is open - so that's a relief. Having an exhibit celebrating the sport of fencing without any fencers would be a pity!
School reunion this weekend - apprehensive - will I recognise anyone? Not sure I can even remember who I went to school with anyway!
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