Gardens on Steroids

Many know I have an interest in gardening so there was one thing I had to do while in the UK and that was visit the world famous Chelsea Flower Show. Bigger than any rock concert, tickets are sold out months before the day so luckily I went on line and purchased my ticket to the steroids of gardening.

Leaving the family at home I headed to London for the weekend. Walking to the show was no different to going to a rock concert apart from the audience shuffling in the walking frames and everyone remaining a polite distance from each other. As you walked there was the constant whispers from 70 year old scalpers “wana bya chelseee tickets?”, “how much forya ticket?”.

Entering the show the first thing that strikes you is the orderliness. Surprisingly, it was very easy to get around and they obviously limit the number of people. I guess this is to prevent the mad push of obsessive green-fingered pensioners falling over each other and breaking their hips.

First port of call was the outside gardens. An amazing series of displays, each meticulously tendered, flowers in full bloom, weedless, all traces of any rouge snail vaporised. They say some have spent up to $1 million to make the gardens – that is $200,000 PER DAY so don’t even think you can reproduce this at home. There was the “Cancer Garden” with a 30 metre long oak sculpture resembling a string of DNA, the “Relationships Garden” based on a farm workers cottage garden, “Sand and Ice” exploring the extremes of climate change, and other strange named ones including “Garden of Transience”, “Scent of a Roman”, “A Pleasance for the Rose and Lily Queen”, Lust for Life” and “Tufa Tea”.

But the best had to be the “Australian Garden”. Not because of its unique use of native plants, but because of the designer who spent most of his time chatting up good looking girls in the crowd, telling jokes and demonstrating the true larrikin in us all.

With all my senses in overload it was time to completely overdose and enter the Great Pavillion. Here your eyes are overloaded with every imaginable colour as flowers compete for each other in trying to be the most dazzling. Realising it was time to get out of there before the mind thinks it is on acid, or I consider changing to a Blue-rinse hairdo, I headed off to catch up with Doug (an old college) from Parramatta for dinner and a good lie down.

A Small World

Sometimes I think how far we are from Australia but then, every now and again, some strange thing happens to really show how small the world really is.

This story begins with a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of Shakespeare.

Having not booked a place to stay we arrived into Stratford and began to seek out accommodation. Now as you know there are 5 people in this family – well 4 if you just happen to be an owner of a hotel which we would like to stay in. You see, it is impossible to get anywhere that is large enough or willing enough to take 5. The whole world conspires against families with 5. Family tickets are always 2 adults and 2 children, cars are designed for 2+2 and hotel rooms only cater for 2+2. I sometimes consider that we as a family are in the absolute minority as we are still married, never divorced, kids not in jail or on some form of drug, and yes we have 3 children. . I am here to tell you that the perfect family of 2+2 is a myth.

Anyway – sorry for the diversion – back to the story.

We finally pulled in to a nice looking hotel and Kathy went and asked if they had a room for 4. The nice lady at the front counter said that they could bring in a fold down bed to make up 4 beds in the room. Great – we will take it. Now the next trick was to decide how to smuggle 1 of our invisible children past the front desk which was kindly located in full view of the front door. No problem – that is why we have twins. So with military precision Kathy takes Adelaide and one of the twins up while Bethany and myself hide in the car. Exactly 5 minutes and 10 seconds after Kathy has gone we enter the hotel in the hope that they didn’t remember how many kids were with Kathy, or at the worst that one has come back down again.

Just in case plan A is not convincing, Bethany crouches down just below the desk so she cant be seen and tip toes stealth like past the desk. Ensuring that there is no chance of any eye contact we move rapidly holding our breath – will the cameras get us (this is the most watched country in the world)? Will the accommodation comados appear out of nowhere? The heart races….we can see the lift…almost there… we made it.

So with kids smuggled into the room, it was time for some room service. But the question is – how do we get room service without them seeing the extra stow away. So with children in a circle the next plan is prepared. When there is a knock at the door, Isabelle is to hide under the bed. After many practices and lots of giggles from a talking bed the plan gets into place.

Room service is ordered….there is a knock at the door…..there are herds of elephants crashing in the room…. The door opens….
“here is your order – where would you like it?” ....
...."O that is alright I will take it thanks”...
…. The bed lets out a loud whimper…..the door is SLAMMED SHUT just in time for the porter to extract his hand before being decapitated. SUCCESS.

So the next morning time to pack the car we are feeling comfortable in our ability to extract ourselves in the same manner. What could go wrong?

Well this is where the small world comes into it. As I walk back in from packing the car I past the front desk and hear an ‘Australian’ accent. I stop and reminisce how I miss that sound but on listening closer my head thinks – I know that voice. Looking over to the desk (something I had avoided the whole time), who do I see but a stately gentleman and his wife who I work with in PARRAMATTA! Either Illana has sent someone over to spy on me or this is an amazing fluke. We both gawk in disbelief at the coincidence of meeting each other. After picking our jaws up of the floor we enter into long discussions over how long are you here for, where have you been, what have you seen, are you missing Parramatta (NOT)….. By this stage the front desk are engrossed in this amazing conversation but all of a sudden the next question catches me by surprise.
...“ So how are the three kids? – are the twins enjoying their stay? – where are they?”

CAPOW - With that, the horn is blown RETREAT, RETREAT, pull the plug, withdraw all troops - I extract myself in blur leaving the couple standing by themselves staring into an empty corridor. "Sorry Bruce! Cant talk now" as I disapear never to be seen again.

So the lessons are:
1. no matter where you are in the world don’t ever let your guard down.
2. don’t even think of cheating on your partner in a hotel room even on the other side of the world

3. Don’t have three children

FA - what does that mean?

I woke up yesterday morning and listened to the forecast on the news - “It is going to be cloudy, followed by some patches of sunshine clearing to more sun, followed by a little more cloud, the chance of a light shower, a light breeze clearing to long sunny spells”……. And that was only up until lunchtime!

So not wanting to waste another lovely day we headed to the Swannery at Abbotsbury. It is the home to the only colony of nesting mute swans open to the public in the world (well that is what they tell you). May is hatching time so the kids had a great time looking at all the little baby swans (cygnets for those that care). There has been a swannery at Abbotsbury since at least the 14th century. The swannery may have been established by the monks of Abbotsbury Abbey, but it seems more likely that they simply took advantage of a natural swan habitat provided by the shelter of Chesil Bank.

Always one to find out some trivial facts that I will never remember again, you will be interested to know that still today Lloyds of London use quills from Abbotsbury swan feathers to register insurance losses in their "Doom" book.

Speaking of swans - well done swanies – I hear they won against Port Adelaide. And speaking of football, the afternoon we did what all good English do and went to the local pub to watch the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Manchester United. It was the 126th FA Cup Final and the first to be played at the new Wembley Stadium.

It seems the media are reporting it as a dud game with very little excitement. If you asked the fans in the pub I think you will find they had more fun heckling each other than watching the game. But then again who would not be bored watching 90 minutes of something where even the goalies decided to sit down and read the newspaper during the game. The girls on the other hand had a great time in the pub. Not only is it mandatory to go to the pub to watch the FA cup final it also seems it is an essential requirement to take your dog and bring it into the bar. Isabelle and Bethany spent the time playing with all manner of dogs.

And speaking of the weather - they got it right - it was cloudy in the morning, followed by some patches of sunshine clearing to more sun, followed by a little more cloud, with a light shower, then a light breeze clearing to long sunny spells. God lov the weather forcasters here.

Beer and Pie

With Sam and Jem spending the weekend with us, another good reason to head out and see this most beautiful countryside.

The weekend started like many others.
“What do you want to do today Kathy?”
“I don’t know, what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know, what do you think?”
“Not sure, what ever you want”.

So out came the map and after a few random twirls of the finger it landed on Beaminster. The real benefit of living here is that every weekend is an adventure and every weekend you have the chance to wonder off and explore little villages, hidden churches and narrow country lanes.

Lying in the folding hills of West Dorset, Beaminster is a cute little market town with some lovely picturesque 17th century cottages. The village butcher was selling local lamb, rare pork breeds and fresh game and the greengrocer had a great range of fresh organic fruit and veg. Wanting to add to the local economy we forced ourselves to consume large quantities of Dorset Apple Cake, clotted cream, scones, and numerous other sweets to keep our sugar levels high for the rest of the week. Somehow, in the hour we were there, Sam also managed to replace her wardrobe from one of the clothes shops. I noticed the shop owner put up a sign the minute she left saying “gone on holidays” so I gather they got their income for the rest of the year.

From there we headed to Montacute House, one of the finest Elizabethan country houses in the United Kingdom. The three floored mansion was built in 1598. I read that during wet weather, the Phelips children would lead their ponies up the three flights of stairs to ride in the long gallery that spans the entire top floor of the house. Today, it is used by the National Portrait Gallery where there is a large collection of paintings of kings, queens and nobleman of the past.

What better way to finish off the day than a visit to the ‘Smugglers Inn’ for a classic meal of pork sausages and mash, and Steak Pie in Tanglefoot beer gravy, washed down with more Tanglefoot.

Sunday and we woke to the patter of unfamiliar rain. With the April rains finally decided to arrive late, it was agreed that there would be no adventure today.

O Well, there is always next weekend……

A Celtic Journey

A bank holiday in this part of the world so what better thing to do than nick across to another country for the weekend. Well, not quite a 'separate Country' but the family jumped in the car and headed to Cymru or Wales.

The fist thing you notice when you drive along is the strange warning signs. I soon realised that ARAF is not the sound a dog makes but STOP. ARAFWCH NAWR is not a German concentration camp but REDUCE SPEED NOW and watch out pedestrians as I have no chance of pronouncing CERDDWYR YMLAEN. You get used to calling everything by two names. All the street signs, brochures, labels etc are written in English and Welsh - a clear indication of the divide created when the Saxons cut the land off from the rest of Celtic Britain.

It is interesting (or at least I found it interesting) that the two words have opposite menings - Wales is derived from an old Saxon word meaning foreigners or outsiders. Where as the name Cymru is derived from a word meaning friends or companions.

Anyway – we set of over the open moorland and countryside from Cardiff, through winding roads that stretched their way along the coast until we reached the mountains of the Snowdonia range. The next thing you notice on entering Snowdonia National Park (or is that Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri) that they are not national parks like in Australia. Here you have villages, farms and their associated animals, roads buildings etc. But despite this, there are still some majestic mountains that tower over lovely hidden valleys.

We stayed in a place called Blaenau Ffestiniog which is an old slate mining town surrounded by the National Park. Its defining feature as you enter the town is the huge man made mountain made from slate waste, which provided an unusual and dramatic blot on the landscape. A writer from the Boston Globe wrote "Blaenau Ffestiniog is one of the ugliest spots you'll find in north Wales. The air itself seems permeated with a dark gray cast.... The slate history of the town is everywhere. Stone houses are roofed in slate, stone steps leading through town are slate, and shops feature slate products in their windows. But most striking is the dead landscape that surrounds the town. The hills are lifeless piles of gray rubble. ........ enormous mounds of waste rock now cover the land. A gorgeous place it is not,......". I am not as harsh and thought it was a dramatic contrast to the surrounding landscape that was unique it its own kind of ugly way.

But the real scenery is the national park and a great way to see it was from the Ffestiniog Railway which runs narrow gauge stream trains through the park. The kids had a great time and so did mum and dad.

Unfortunately we had to make our way back home so we did not have time to go north a bit more to visit the little town with the big name 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch'. I think it would be much simpler to just call it by its English translation of "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave".

I guess there is always next weekend.