From posh gardens to truck tours



After the joys of the Henley Re-GAH-ta on Friday, it was off to the Hampton Court Flower Show on Monday, which was full of new and interesting ways to lay out one's garden.



Most were very clean and neat, kind of zen, and more fashionable than imaginative. But there were some that stood out even if it was just one small detail. 

LORAS garden.

The LOROS garden of light and reflection, for example, was aimed at patient therapy and relaxation. It would not have looked out of place at a Centre Parc spa, but it was the water feature that I particularly liked - a ball of flowing water which was then channelled through the patio to the pond area. 


Night garden - in the dark.



Of particular interest was the night garden, which looked stunning in it's evening environment - lots of LEDs mixed in with a central pond and a patio on one side, a lounger area on the other - all inside a darkened tent.

There was a fungus garden, which needed to be viewed through rusty periscopes, but looked beautifully alien. The only problem was finding it, because the sign was quite small, and it looked like a bunch of rusty bins until you realised that the 'bins' were in fact the periscopes.

There was a garden - more of a pond than a garden really, that was bizarrely beautifully with its bowl of air, hedge and girl inset into a lake.

Pink!

Then there was the bright pink garden which is only forgiven because it was there for health of the Waterworks variety.

A lovely pub lunch by the river finished off the day which was just lovely.

On Wednesday I was in Reading for the opening of a truck - I'll leave that one to your imagination. The interesting bit about this trip was picking up a date for Saturday night on the M20.



I only noticed the car in the first place because he was trying to climb into my boot at Junction 10. We kind of vaguely played tag up the M20, which amused me a bit. Then at the M20/26 junction he pulled alongside with a note ' UR gorgeous!' which made me smile a lot.

We definitely played tag along the M26 and came across the junction with the M25 which was at a crawl as usual. 'Come here often?' was the next sign after we'd integrated into the crawl.

After a couple more cutely cheesy exchanges he tried to give me his phone number, but my pens were in the back, so I decided to let fate play the hand. We got close enough side by side that I was able to throw my business card through his passenger window thinking that the wind would probably take it.

It was a spot on shot - he called me later and we went for a drink Saturday night. He's very sweet, but totally not my type. Having said that, he was a much better conversationalist than many, and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

In other news, I've just had valuations on my little house, which it turns out should give me exactly the right amount to sell up and buy a boat. A little bit too exactly, but still. Enough to look at lead-times and advanced costs before making that leap.