The Chelsea Flower Show is taking place next door to me right now. I once went, in the company of Kitcat. We bought tickets from a tout. And didn’t really know why we were there. I think you need to have a big old home like Eyreton but maybe not in the awful Manx soil. Either way I’m living in a flat in London. I’m not gonna have a garden. But they are my landlords for the leasehold I think, still…
It means that right now there’s no easy parking outside my flat, there are loads of vans with tickets and loads of happy looking uniformed people who have chosen to be hideous people for a living, running around sticking tickets on incorrect cars. Many of the cars are correct and I’m ok with it as it is just short term. It’s a small price to pay for the fantastic work opportunities my parking permit makes possible.
This year is the first year since 2013 that Gnomes have been allowed in the show.
It is all so unuterrably alien to me.
For this show to have any sense at all you first need to have a property with a garden and then you need to care about what your garden looks like and then you need to be able to afford to get a ticket and look at things, and then you need to be able to action things you’ve witnessed. It’s a trade show for people who have already been absorbed by the establishment, or ARE the establishment. “Oh but you HAVE to use Piggles for your roses, they are just SO perfect for all your landscaping needs.”
Placement isn’t talent. Twas ever thus though. We do the best we can, and the good practitioner often watches and assists the idiot who is being paid more.
I’m not gonna go this year I think, unless someone has a freebie for me. I’m a long way from a house with a garden right now. Not sure I want to do it anyway.
I’m glad there are gnomes though. Through my whole upbringing, gnomes were considered somehow vulgar. The people who had them were either dull as fuck or rebels. As a child it is so hard to differentiate. As an adult it is easy, but I’ve been on very few gardens.
AlBarclay 