Sunday 25th May 2014

Like the Royal year, the Poor Little Rich Gay summer gets underway with ruthless aplomb. Glyndebourniana, Chelsea – will there ever be any room for variety? I doubt it.

Then it’s the Proms and Tuscany.

I realise I haven’t even covered my back garden tulips – getting too late. And the River Cruise and Bologna – so much … so much teeming life, not to mention the Jean Paul Gaultier Exhibition, Clerkenwell Design Week and the 29th (well, not quite) birthdays of Reggie Cresswell and Robert Nevil. They will  remain 29 now for a very long time.

But Chelsea. The Flower Show. Lord Arrowy was there with his mother in a rickshaw. Simon Limpney also somehow admitted, contaminating the Ground. Heard of but not seen by me, thank God. He is an arch enemy. My Christmas card, if ever sent, would read, ‘Forgotten but not forgiven.’

None of the main gardens except the Daily Telegraph garden appealed to our party.  Cleve West garden: no. ‘What’s that phallus at the centre?’ Laura Malcolm condemned. Best in Show Garden: not really. ‘Rather a lot of yellow lupins, ‘Aunt Lavinia, whose voice has boomed for England for centuries, boomed. Daily Telegraph garden: yes. Liked hard landscaping for once, because that’s what usually is such a disaster. ‘All too new,’ as Aunt Lavinia always says.

Matt Driver was awfully clued up. At one time he was deodorant marketing in Europe if not the world. I would have missed the touching ‘before and after’ 1st World War garden in the main tent. ‘Before’ was when the man of the house was tending the patch, neat row of vegetables, ‘after’ was when he was gone, garden gone to wild, onions shot etc. Very simple. Very touching. We also liked the potters’ garden in Artisan Row. Apparently there were some potters who made flower pots for Gertrude Jekyll. They survived the War. So their little plot with kiln and path made of failed pots broken up was recreated. For so many, the 1st World War was leaving a quiet rural idyll, if poor, for modern killing machinery.

In Main Row a 1st World War garden had a shell hole as a pond. We liked that.

Otherwise the Japanese Master Garden in Artisan Row was striking if soggy – acers and moss, with water wheel. Damp glass box to sit in.

Every time we went past the many hideous garden ornament outlets, Aunt Lavinia would boom, ‘Perfectly ghastly. Who on earth would buy this rubbish?’ regardless of proximity of stall-holder from whose soul these items might have been wrought if they had made them.

The great revelation and feature of Chelsea this year was Laura Malcolm’s attitude to the Chelsea Pensioners – she can’t stand them. We passed a noble bronze statue of one by a path. She wanted to wack it. When Ivy Driver, her daughter, was a girl, the Pensioners leapt out at every opportunity to complain about her scooting on her scooter and the danger posed to their venerable persons. ‘What wars did they fight it?’ Laura Malcolm queried. ‘They’re just a crowd of spongers who’ve had to be re-housed.’

Sir Beardshaw At Chelsea. Actually I Like Him But he was Enthusing in TV Style – i.e. Waving Arms About – in Cleve West Garden Which was Worrying

Nice Corner of Othewise Horrid Cleve West Garden

Classic Chelsea Male Attire

Great Madam Look for Chelsea: Classic Male

Daily Telegraph Garden: Yes. You Could Do this Yourself

Daily Telegraph Garden: Yes:

Designer Who Designed Best in Show: Perfectly Nice Man but His Garden??

Best in Show Garden: No

Garden Ornament: Perfectly Ghastly

1st World War Garden with Shell-Hole Pond: Yes

Japanese Master Garden: Soggy but Great

Gertrude Jekyll’s Flower-Pot Making Friends’ Garden: They survived the 1st World War

Sir Titchland Titmarsh, Britain’s Sexiest Man: ‘Thank you for so many years of gardening,’ some idiotic woman Said to Him

Don’t Know What This is? Does Anybody? Why Didn’t I Get a Graph of Before and After 1st World War Garden in the Tent? Why, Oh Why, Why?