Not that I am particularly squeamish but have never really found the time to indulge in unspeakable acts with goats or whittle arrows from mistletoe. I have never danced naked at Stonehenge (in fact my entire experience of naked dancing has been a bit limited: which will come as a great relief to all). Spells, chants and hexes have never been in my repertoire. Although I don’t mind a bit of drumming and I am pretty good on Greco-Roman pantheistic mythology.

I then went back to bed.

I have mentioned Colonsay on these pages before and urged you all to visit (there are cottages and a small hotel for your comfort). Typically none of you listened and that is your loss as the weather was truly sensational: especially in comparison to the drearily continuous rain that has beset the south. (ii) As a result I have a slight suntan and you do not.

Show season is now upon us: I am writing this in a conservatory, inside an exhibition hall within the Excel centre. It is Grand Designs Live and I am running my own personal design studio populated by very industrious newly qualified garden designers dealing with the varied problems brought to our door by visitors to the show. So far I have dealt with a small terrace, an overgrown hedge, a bit of woodland, some very narrow borders, a large shed, somebody whose plant knowledge only stretched to marigolds and a sloping terrace. I have also delivered a lecture about vegetables (along with Cleve West) and done a cookery demonstration (lamb wellington with steamed vegetables followed by a chocolate fondant).

All in a day’s work.

Thursday I go to Malvern to frolic and tart around in the theatre there: this year, for a bit of variety, I am also doing a bit of stuff for Gardeners’ World (to be broadcast, presumably, on Friday). Which is nice. A thought must be spared for the landscapers, organisers, nurseries and designers at Malvern because the build-up has been thoroughly miserable with rain every day. Plants are reluctant to flower (Cleve West’s beech hedge has arrived at Chelsea devoid of any leaves: a naked hedge) and it has been very tough. I hope that there is at least some sunshine over the weekend. Go along and be nice to them all.

I have had a request for a better picture of my rather fine fruit cage, it would seem churlish to refuse.

While we are on the subject of fruit: I went to a fascinating orchard the other day. It was at the East Malling Research Institute in Kent where I was on an RHS Council jolly. There were fruit trees trained in all sorts of interesting ways: goblets, espaliers, cordons, things that looked like small huts and these fabulous serpentine shapes. Hatton Fruit Garden, it was called, open once a year for the National Gardens Scheme. You should go if you remember.

That is very probably enough for the moment from me.

I am listening to the infernal rumble of people shopping for home improvement items.

The picture is of some very young grapes.

(i) This has long been my alarm setting of choice. I find it strikes just the right note of urgency and cheerfulness. If it was an animal I imagine it to be a very reasonable minded opossum. Probably quite mature for its age

(ii) Warning: weather can change frequently. The value of your investment in weather can go up and down.

I have just received another one of those really annoying sales calls where one is talked at by a cheery voiced tape recording. On this occasion he was trying to sell me roof insulation but I have had others flogging accident cover. I find it hard to believe that anybody will be persuaded by a recording. It is hard enough if there is a real person. Many years ago I was the King of unsolicited cold calling. When I say King I probably mean, minor princeling but I was in charge of an office full of people whose job was to go through the Yellow Pages for some suburb of, say, Manchester or Norwich trying to sell advertising. I was promoted to office manager after doing some pretty impressive work on selling £50 advertising boxes in the official desk diary of the Association of Monumerntal Masons (i) I used to be in charge of sacking people who made no money after a couple of days: I even sacked my wife (before we were married). I wrote scripts which began “Good Morning, may I speak to your Managing Director, please?” then, if you succeeded in getting through, “Good Morning Sir ( very occasionally Madam), my name is X and I represent Y. I was hoping that you could spare us a couple of minutes of your time….blah, blah, blah” until either the call was disconnected or a sale was closed. We did not say “Hi, Jimmy Jim, how are you today?” As if we gave a damn. It was (and doubltless still is) a hellish occupation that was only really achievable by constant smoking and a couple of triple strength Bloody Marys at lunchtime.

My second line of thought is about the general frailness of all flesh and how, as I glide elegantly into middle age. Every day I seem to develop another annoying ache. This morning, believe it or not, I woke up with a nasty pain in my left shoulder and, after recapping on my most recent activities, I have worked out that it was caused by playing Scrabble while sitting slightly awkwardly on the sofa. It is ridiculous: last week there was a strange pain in my right hand. My left hip is regularly troublesome. My lower back can be upset by lifting a two litre plant pot in a slightly unusual manner. It could be said that this is the legacy of a decade or so of hard landscaping so, my young friends, be warned. All that digging and casual hoicking of large lumps of Yorkstone will come back and bite you on the lumbar spine.

Third thought concerns football. Why does everybody argue with the referee after a disputed decision? What is the point? To my (admittedly unencylopaediac) knowledge there has never been a moment when the referee, having been yelled at in a variety of languages by various strapping young men, suddenly says “Oh yes. I am most fearfully sorry gentlemen in the red shirts, but I think I got it a bit wrong. You are right, of course, and that was not a foul/penalty/booking offence so let us start again. What? You chaps in blue disagree with me? Oh dear, oh dear. We can’t have that can we? Tell you what, let’s take a vote -perhaps we should include the crowd in the process just to ensure complete democratic translucency. All those in favour…..” etc, etc

There have been lines of garden related thought as well. My highlight this week has been the completion of a rather fine fruit cage that I designed and which was then filled with various raspberries by his Eminence the Graf of Gooseberry, Marco Diabolo. The ornate wooden post tops are detachable so the netting can be removed in winter (to avoid collapse under the weight of snow). We have also nearly finished a lake and are sowing Dunnettish annual meadows all over the place – including in the orchard here where we have killed off and ploughed up half the grass.

Finally,mhaving just watched You Were Never Lovelier I can think of little else apart from the extraordinarily wonderful naked back of Rita Hayworth – the rest of her was decorously covered with lightly spangled gauze.

This week is National Gardening Week. There are all sorts of things going on so you should really get stuck into something. I am going to the RHS garden at Hyde Hall on Tuesday and am speaking at the Horticultural Careers Day on Wednesday.

The picture is of Magnolia Theodora, photographed at the RHS London Spring Show the other day and grown by John Ravenscroft. (ii)

I am listening to Alabama Shakes

(i) The official body representing Headstone makers.
(ii) Which was also the birth name of the late John Peel.

Two blog posts within a single week. I have not achieved that since about 2009. You will be relieved to know that this one is brief, pert and to the point rather than some ramble about holes in the ground and unsavoury reminiscences.

We have made another Three Men film.

It has been a long time since the last, moustache driven, offering so we thought it time for a big production number.

This time inspired by the very wonderful, Oscar winning film, The Artist: and from there obviously by the whole pantheon of silent movies. Our various friends and relations seemed quite relieved that it was a silent film for some unfathomable reason. It was filmed and edited by my very talented elder son Archie and his friend Max Dovey: as a result the production values are somewhat higher than our usual standard.

It is in honour of the National Gardens Scheme whose 85th birthday falls this year and whose President is none other than Mr.J.Swift.

The public premiere of this work happened at the Yellow Book Press Conference yesterday  - except it didn’t as Mr C.West insisted on showing it at a lecture he gave at Tatton Park at the weekend. He has no feeling for the grand reveal, that boy.

It has, as you will discover, absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with gardens.

The picture, however, does as it is a pair of emerging Horse Chestnut leaves.

Every year I fall into a sort of relaxed stupor around February. My brain tells me that it’s ages until Springtime and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with a bit more hibernation and procrastination. Of course that planting plan can wait until next week.
Naturally, we do not have to rush because it is still winter.
And then, quite suddenly, I realise that it is bloody nearly Spring and there are things left undone that should have been done.
The same thing happens in August when I think that the Autumn will never come so am again caught napping.
This has been going on for years and one would have thought that I should have learned my lesson by now.
Oh no…. Bit dim, Sunny Jim.

As a result I have been in a maelstrom of activity. Unfortunately all this activity is incomplete so, as I take you on a quick tour, the pictures will consist almost exclusively of patches of brown earth and leafless tree: not terribly inspiring but it is only March (in spite of the summeriness of the weather) so give us a break. i will try very hard to remember to come back to these three jobs later in the year.

So, take last Wednesday as an example. I began in a large hole near Shipston-on-Stour where we are digging a truly magnificent lake. It will be like a huge natural infinity pool with spectacular views and vast skies. I am very happy because there are ( I mentioned in my last post) lots of big yellow diggers doing exactly what I tell them. This appeals to my Tonka toy mentality and also to my cunningly concealed control freakery.

Next stop was a very steep field near High Wycombe to lay out the beginnings of a Forest Garden. This is a posh name for a woodland with fruit. Amongst the usual native plants we will intersperse apples, pears, walnuts, chestnuts, mulberries, quinces, plums etc etc ( you get the picture) all under planted with a sea of flowery grass. My fruity friend Mark Diacono is providing various weird fruit trees while I provide taste and style (something a bit lacking in his life- as can be seen from his choice of shirtings). You will notice the pile of trees in the picture: the far slope will be forest garden (augmented by some proper natives to dilute the edibles) while the near slope will be meadowy with some biggish trees.

Final stop of the day was near Chipping Norton where we are planting large trees. I love this sort of thing – more diggers and control freakery: I wrote about it in my blog for Crocus (the one that nobody ever comments on unless I beg). We have also dug a steep sided canyon, when I say “dug” I mean that we have rearranged a vast amount of spoil to make said canyon. It will be flowery and spectacular. All needs to be in place for the end of June when there will, not only be a wedding but a visit from various folk from the Garden Museum who are venturing in this direction to come a see Blackpitts and two other gardens of mine. All in a day, let us hope it raineth not and that the place is not completely trampled by wedding planners. As a bonus we had to plant an Olive Tree that I had bought from the delightful Tim and Jackie at Olive Grove Nurseries. It weighs a ton and three quarters so was not going to be an easy job. But what is more exciting than a digger? You guessed it, a crane. A big extending pole into which all manner of Freudian psycho sexual overtones may be read but, in spite of that, it is the very thing for lifting heavy objects over walls and across pools without mishap. Damn thing better not die.

I have a couple more, similarish, jobs going on but they involve fewer diggers at the moment so are less captivating. I will doubtless drone on about them when the time comes. Suffice to say that we are indulging in a bit of Dunnettry (aka meadow planting in a few places), dispatching lorryloads of the last bare root stuff around the country, searching for water butts, talking to structural engineers etc etc etc.

It is not looking like it will be a spring for relaxation and watching the daffodils flower. Which is odd because this time last year we were swanning around South East Asia with nary a thought about work and stuff. The main picture is of a Camellia photographed at Borde Hill in Sussex.

I am listening to First Night by The Hold  Steady.

At this time in 2008 I was writing about dog bites, Clement Freud and stakes

In the last couple of weeks there has been a fair bit of stuff about the latter following on from the Show Garden Judging Review Forum last Monday. I know a fair bit about this as it is the first committee I have sat on since I joined the RHS Council last June. In fact, top be perfectly accurate it is the first committee I have ever sat on – if you exclude the Contemporary Arts Society when I was at school. But as that was just two of us sitting around smoking Gold Leaf and fantasising wildly about how we could get David Bowie to come and give a private concert so it is not really the same.

The idea was to look at the Judging Process (with particular emphasis on Chelsea Show Gardens) and suggest a few variations and changes. Nothing major as the process is pretty damn effective most of the time. People get very excited by this sort of thing: actually, to be perfectly accurate, a few people get agitated while the vast majority of both the general population and the membership of the RHS glance over briefly and then resume normal life. Most gardeners are more interested in plants and pests than they are in the intricacies of show garden judging but those of us who are interested are very vocal and opinionated.

This is a good thing.

The next step was to hold a Forum where the exhibitors could have their say: they, after all, are the people who do all the work so the RHS should be listening as much as possible. Anyway, read more over at ThinkinGardens where Victoria Summerley has written two good piecesand various people have commented. One of the things that strikes me is that there is a lot of “they should do this” and “they should do that”. Who do we think “they” are? The RHS is a charity and their management and running is divided very clearly into two parts: the executive (those who are professional and are paid salaries to run the joint) and the voluntary. The seventeen members of council are volunteers: as are the show garden and plant judges, plant committee members, guides and volunteer gardeners. If you feel strongly that something should be done, then why not volunteer? there is nothing stopping you if you are a member. If you want change (and I think that the vast majority do) then get stuck in! It is quite fun being a pillar of the establishment.

As I am becoming so lousy at writing regular blogs we have now moved on from the above forum and have had another, very long, meeting to sort things through. Results to follow in March but the process will always be under review. The truth of the matter is that no judging system will ever make everybody happy all of the time. If you win a Gold medal then it is wonderful. If you don’t then the whole thing stinks and the judges are nothing more than corrupt lackeys of a moribund organisation.

Amongst other committee news: I had my first Gardens committee meeting at Wisley and have also sat on the Hampton Court Gardens selection committee and the Digital Strategy Review. It is quite time consuming this Council business: but only because a lot of things are interesting and worth spending time upon. The best lunch was at Hampton Court selection although the Wisley sandwiches were perfectly acceptable – especially combined with a slice of cake in the company of two of my very favourite women: Ms A.Sock and Ms AM Powell.

As an antidote to all that sitting in overheated rooms I have a collection of diggers in my life. Persistent readers of this blog will perhaps remember that I come over all Tonka Toy when I have large machines to play with. I am not really allowed to drive the things (i) but my role is to jump up and down excitedly shouting “Over there, Over there” or “Deeper, Bigger,Wider” (ii) We have dug a canyon on one job and are just starting on a rather fine pond on another. I also have electricians running around talking about wattages and cable loadings, most of the time I have absolutely no idea what they are going on about.

Most exciting unsolicited press release of the week regarded the appointment of a new Managing Director for some printing company. His name is Lladislav Sloup.

What else? Not much the “It” about which various people have written is progressingwell and becoming more gorgeous by the minute. I could do with some money if anybody has any to spare. I have been to Devon and Lancashire to talk to clients and everything else just keeps on rolling. I think the best thing would be to post this rather than twiddling my thumbs waiting for something remarkable to happen about which I could blog.

I must also confess to very unChristian feelings towards Robert Peston. I am sure he is terribly nice and kind to animals but his vocal arrhythmia gives me the pip.

The picture is of a pure white Crocus.

I am listening to Last Train To Clarksville by the Monkees in memory of Davy Jones.(iii)

(i) In the glorious days before the invention of the hi-viz vest I did drive diggers. I had a fine old time but was occasionally a little haphazard. I rolled one down a hill (with me in it). Knocked one of my colleagues into a water filled trench and punctured a main drain (with slightly unsavoury consequences).

(ii) This latter exhortation makes me sound a bit like a 1970s porn star (or what I would imagine a 1970s porn star might shout) so I try not to do it on the out breath or while suggestively licking my upper lip. Digger drivers tend to look unsympathetically on such behaviour.

(iii) Whose wife, I notice, was ten years younger than his elder daughter.

So that is a good start. Suffice to say it involves iPads and gardens and is extraordinarily gorgeous. If you want to see it then come and find me.

In the meantime, we have had a bit of a mammal-fest in the garden. This is, mostly, a good thing as it makes things more interesting as we sweep frostily into February.

First, we had a visiting cat. I know that, to town dwellers, this is a real “Whatever!” moment as no day is complete without a string of neighbouring moggies relieving themselves in your geraniums, but we have not had a feline visitor for a while. Our most recent cat died about two years ago (during a rather ghastly month when we lost one cat and two dogs) and has not yet been replaced. This visiting cat was not, I’m afraid, a very attractive specimen. Gingery black with a face like a cheap bouncer. I rapped on the window and it paused, slowly turned to look at me, lifted a disdainful eyebrow, uttered a stream of unrepeatable profanities from the corner of its mouth and sauntered off: no manners, cats.

Secondly, a large fox appeared (again this is not news to those of you who regularly have your dustbins rifled by mangy specimens). We have had previous visits from foxes – the most obvious being the couple of times when we have found all the chickens slaughtered – but not often within the garden. This fox just wandered in during the day, shat on a plant and went again. It then reappeared later at the same time as the previously mentioned cat. The following conversation ensued:

Fox: “Who you lookin’ at?”

Cat: “You, you spindle shanked, bushy tailed poltroon. You fluttering coxcomb. I spit in your wobble. You hopper arsed trullibub. You whoreson buck fitch. May your galligaskins split and the huckle spill from your table. ” (I warned you the cat was foul mouthed but I had not realised until that moment how archaic is the average cat’s vocabulary)

Fox: “Oh. Alright then”

Exit Fox.

Thirdly, a whole lotta mice. These had taken up residence in, among and under a load (or perhaps drift is a more apposite description) of Panicum. The little blighters had eaten most of the roots and built themselves cosy little houses. They scattered when the things were cut down like a cartoon version of the Three Blind Mice. Carol, who was doing the cutting, did not stand on a stool and scream which was disappointing for those of us who particularly enjoy a cliche coming to life.

Fourthly, a hibernating hedgehog which was discovered by Carol’s dog curled up in a ball and dug into a flower bed. He was very carefully rehoused by Simon. We often see hedgehog poo, but seldom the hedgehogs although I did find two babies living in the compost heap a few years ago which was very charming. It is odd how baby hedgehogs are cute, baby rats are not: public perception relies so much on good PR and rats definitely employed the wrong company.

Fifthly, various moles which have been caught on a reasonably regular basis since Christmas. These have seen fruitful post-death service as my dear daughter has been rather taken with the idea of taxidermy so has been practising by skinning any dead mammal that comes within her reach. She has become very efficient and can whip the pelt off a squirrel in minutes. We have had a selection of mole pelts pinned out on boards in the kitchen. A mole skin is a very soft and lovely thing, I am hoping for, at the very least, a singlet.

I am listening to Leonard Cohen singing Different Sides. For him, it is almost jaunty. The picture is of the Sarcococca hookeriana outside my office. I took the photograph using a very neat little macro lens that clips onto my iPhone, tricky to hold still but interesting.There is also fish eye attachment.

Hooray!

Six years worth of drivel has trickled from my fingers to clutter up the outer reaches of the hypernet. Nobody noticed for quite a long time, which was okay but blogging is much more fun when you are certain that somebody is reading the thing.

What a sterling use of technology.

Sometimes I wonder what will happen to all this stuff that we broadcast. Will any of it exist in fifty years time?

Indeed, should it exist ? or should it just pop like floating soap bubbles colliding with a stationary hedgehog ? Will future historians ever show any interest in the billions of self-indulgent words that we have written? Who knows, but, almost every time I publish a blog post, it always strikes me as remarkable that it was only six hundred odd years ago that every individual book was laboriously copied out by monks with chilblained fingers and grubby habits. Each book cost a fortune and was mostly only seen by a handful of people, the subject matter was also somewhat limited being confined to religion. There was no illuminated detective fiction or saucy romance. Then Caxton and Gutenburg and that lot got going and soon the printed word was, while not exactly available to all, much more widespread. Nowadays any old sod can find an audience.

Anyway…

Spring is coming and there are things to be done. Included on my list of January achievements are:

Gone to listen to a recording of Gardeners Question Time in Spalding, Lincolnshire. My learned friend Nigel Colborn recently launched an impassioned defence of his home county but he skates over the bleakness of this particular area in favour of various wolds and luminaries such as Isaac Newton and Nicholas Parsons. There is nothing woldish about Spalding : unless your idea of an area of outstanding natural beauty includes heaps of sugar beet, concrete barns and ditches. Maybe I caught it on a bad day, in the wrong light or perhaps I missed the best bits.Anyway, when I got there the gloriously fragrant Matthew Wilson was on the panel so all was sunshine. It was interesting: I sat in a rather comfortable van with the sweetly scented Lucy Dichmont watching the broadcast while she uttered slight direction into the ear of Eric Robson. There was cake but not in the luxuriant quantities I had been led to expect.

I am very admiring of the GQT panel: my mind kept going blank when I tried to come up with an answer and I was not even out there snuggling up to Bunny and Christine. It is one of those perennial problems that I have: as soon as somebody asks me a specific question like “What shall I plant in my dark moist corners?” (or something similar) I have a moment of blankness when all I can think of are plants that thrive in the windswept aridness of the high plains. Somehow the brain eventually re-engages and I start spouting about ferns.

I have attended two meetings of the RHS Judging review panel. We are examining the show garden judging process which is interesting: we are also making progress which is excellent. There will be a public meeting in early February so that any interested parties can come and chip in their opinions.

I have collected a new and rather spiffy suit (single breasted birdseye).

I have organised some trees and seen assorted clients all of whom seem reasonably happy.

Had a very fine lunch with Cinead from the English Garden.

My daughter has become very keen on the idea of taxidermy. She has spent much of Christmas skinning things including nine moles and three squirrels. A skinned squirrel looks just like a rat.

Errrrr….. that is about it really.

Oh, and I am reaching the zenith of a very exciting project which will completely change the world of gardening media for ever. Details will follow very soon: please remain poised.

I am listening to You’ll be Sorry One Day by Slim Harpo.

The picture is of a frosted Phlomis.

Train waiting rooms used (many years ago before most of you were born) to be very comfortable with roaring coal fires and little shops that sold tea and buns (qv Brief Encounter). There used to even be a small bar on Sloane Square Underground station where you could knock back a swift half in between District and Circle lines. They are now mostly quite uncongenial with rudimentary heating, pierced steel benches and the slight smell of cat pee (although how that happens I have no idea: unless Network Rail sprays it around out of a can with the precise purpose of stopping vagrants setting up home in the corner). The notable exception is Plumpton station in Sussex which has leatherette sofas and low tables. Mind you it has also always been closed when I have passed through so it might just be a big tease.

Dentists waiting rooms, in my childhood memories, consisted of dark wood coffee tables with neatly lined up copies of the Illustrated London News- a magazine that does not really exist outside such places – and an ominously loud ticking clock.

All hospital waiting rooms have the same high backed, wipe clean chairs that are perfectly comfortable for the first two hours but get a bit wearying thereafter. By my calculations (and Mathematics is not my strong point (i)) I have spent about 17 hours in such rooms over the past four days. The reason is very dull: I had something called a basal cell carcinoma just under my eye. A very benign and uninteresting condition that happens to lots of people: especially gardeners and cricketers. However, it still had to be dug out  with a sharp spoon and examined and stitched up and stuff which involved a great deal of waiting over four days and about three pints of local anaesthetic administered through umpteen different injections. The waiting continues today as I am just off to have the stitches removed: always an entertaining way to spend half an hour.

But better out than in, as they say. Wear sunscreen ,people, and ensure your children do as well. I now look a little like the survivor from a Prussian duel (especially as I have just had a severe haircut) with a long scar running close to my eye. Very dashing if you like that sort of thing. In order to make full use of this, I am buying into the full stereotype by being measured for a tight Hussar’s jacket, shiny boots with clickable heels and I am changing my name to Helmut von Schnickenschnick.

I have also been to visit York Gate. This is a garden of which I have heard lots and seen many pictures but never visited. I even wrote a series of  questions on the subject of the garden for a radio quiz a few years ago. Nigel Colborn and I were in charge of quiz mastering and one of the contestant’s specialist subjects was York Gate. Amongst the questions were: The pond at York Gate was constructed to mark which occasion in the Spencer’s lives? Answer: Frederick and Sybil’s 25th Wedding Anniversary. Thank goodness for the internet. The garden, in reality, is delightful. Very compact (only an acre) and beautifully looked after by David Beardall the head gardener – as was I: we had a delightful afternoon topped off with cake made by his wife, Tina. It is owned by Perennial, the horticultural charity which looks after distressed professional gardeners so it is expedient for all of us to rally round – just in case. Go and visit if you find yourself mooching around Leeds.

The picture is of the view from Westminster Bridge. I am listening to Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time) by the Delfonics.

(i) I failed my Maths ‘O’ level five times which was somewhat of a record. Eventually I was smuggled off to a different school to take a CSE in which I scored a triumphant Grade 1. The questions must have been extremely basic with nary a whiff of the Quadratic Equation. One of my major humiliations in Maths was at about age 9 when I was convinced that I had worked out the answer to a question. My hand shot up “Sir, Sir!” I carolled like a smug little swot “Please Sir!”. The Maths master (who had already marked my card as a bit of a dodgy character and one unlikely to justify his decision to go into teaching rather than brewing or Estate Agency) fixed me with a hopeful eye “Yes, Sinclair?”

“The answer” I chirruped (ii) “is two tooths”. Even to me this sounded a bit wrong. “or two teeth, Sir. You know” said I wildly writing in the air with my hand “2/2″.

Hysterical collapse of all parties.

“2/2″ sneered the Maths master (whose name, I have just remembered was Johnson and  had a line of Parker pens in his breast pocket) “as everybody knows does not exist. 2/2 =1. And anyway the answer to the sum is 342″ (or something like that). From that moment on I realised that Maths and I were not only never going to be bedfellows but we would probably never even shake hands politely. Thank goodness for the pocket calculator.

(ii) I did a lot of chirruping in those days. Especially when in the choir for which duty I looked gorgeously angelic in a red cassock and starched ruff.

My goodness, how time flies past.

Another year, another Garden Media Guild shindig under our belts. This year, as you may already be aware, Three Men were officiating. We made a short film and then tarted about for a bit which is always a jolly a way of spending an afternoon. As you are also doubtless well aware, Mark Diacono won three consecutive awards which was very gratifying. If you like that vegetably sort of thing.

I managed to stick a piece of paper on his back saying “Kick Me” and noticed Lia Leendertz sharpening the toe of her Jimmy Choos as I left.

There was then the usual drunken shenanigans in the pub where the usual suspects fell over to general hilarity. If you are interested you can watch the whole ceremony (apart from the falling over bits) here. As always it was a very jolly occasion with a lot of moustaches in evidence. Movember is now over and we have raised a shade over £20,000. I am terribly proud of everybody: we exceeded my wildest expectations. At the beginning I just thought it would be quite fun and we could raise a few hundred quid, thank you to all who participated and especially to those who coughed up the cash. I made a short film to commemorate the occasion, the music is by Nick Riddle who snuck into our team with fraudulent bonafides: he is not a gardener but we forgive him because of the excellent whistling and faraway look.

Apart from all this glamorous swanning about at awards ceremonies and growing whiskers there has been work going on: well, if you count wandering around looking at rocks work. These are very big rocks and there are lots of them: the reason is that we are rebuilding a quarry.Let me explain, in one of my gardens is a big scrape in the ground – about 35 feet deep at its steepest – which used to be a quarry. The idea is to make it look sort of quarryish again by reinstalling big lumps of stone which will then be interesting to climb on and could be planted with ferns, trees and general stuff.

So Tuesday found me wandering around a vast site in Oxfordshire choosing monster rocks. I do love this sort of thing, I come over all Tonka truckish at the sight of large diggers and deep mud. Which is quite odd as I have never been very interested in cars, I had Dinky Cars but was never much of a Brrrm, Brrrm kind of child. I am left unmoved by Ferraris and Formula One but get very excited by a large digger and a deep trench. Anyway, we chose a selection of rocks which are now being slowly transported across to Gloucestershire, doubtless much to the annoyance of the traffic on the A44: my apologies if you find yourselves stuck behind a straining tractor.

I have also been to the RHS Garden at Hyde Hall. I had never been before and, now I am responsible in some small way for its upkeep, thought I had better show my face. It is the newest RHS Garden and is very much under development (there is a handsome newly dug lake), lots of trees are being planted, borders hewn from fields, the Dry Garden is being extended and new car parks built. I may not have chosen the best day for a visit as it was markedly chilly. The wind howled across battering the collection of christmas trees decorated by local branches of the WI which stand amongst the borders: I suspect that tinsel will be being picked from trees across Essex for months to come. Still, it was interesting and bracing and we got turkey for lunch. Oh, and the best bit was the live willow weaving. They have groups of pollarded willow in the borders that have been bunched together and tied into various shapes: very effective and sculptural.

Before you go, here is another film: this was made by a very clever fellow called Sebastian Solberg about Jeremy and Camilla Swift’s extraordinary garden in Wales. I arrived there after going to a memorial service (hence spiffy tie) and was immediately sat down and required to spout stuff. It is an extraordinary garden varying from pretty orchards to ruined hovels via high Classicism, steep woodlands, theatres, turtles and the Kingdom of the Moor. It is open for the NGS at some point: but for goodness sake, take a raincoat, it is Welsh Wales, after all.

I am listening to Wild america by Iggy Pop. The picture is of the aforementioned willows at Hyde Hall.

Right. I am beetling my way towards the station to catch the train to London where I been invited by the delightful Tamsin (and equally delightful but in a different way Adrian) Slatter to sit at their table for the Landscape Institute Awards. All fine, a straightforward and simple journey beckons. But, such complacency arouses the mischief of the Gods and the first problem is that there are absolutely no car parking spaces around Milton Keynes, this in a place designed to be mostly car park. I eventually end up on the far side of Argos, miles away from Platform 4 and in the time it has taken to find a place I have missed two perfectly good trains. I then run to the station and miss another one by twelve seconds. Okay. We re-group, it is not the end of the world. I may miss the canapés and a bit of random mingling. I then get on a train which beetles along for a while and then stops, unexpectedly in Tring (i). And stays there for an unnecessary length of time: we could have got out and visited the Zoological Museum (ii), had a cup of tea and been back in our seats with time to spare. It then made other unscheduled stops at Hemel Hepstead, Watford Junction and Wembley Central.

Honestly, it was as if the train had been possessed by the soul of a newly installed suffragan Bishop eager to show off his new mitre and gremiale in every parish in the county.

Eventually, over an hour and a bit later, we arrived in London’s Euston Station. Signal problems had done for us.

They had also done for my lunch – those of you in sound mind will recall that the original intention of this journey was to have lunch and clap as awards were given to deserving Landscape architects. I was now two hours late and all that remained was a dollop of melting ice cream and the three chocolates that nobody else wanted. I arrived just in time to hear Tim Smit make a very good speech about the importance of beauty and how important language was in things and how one should never use language at work that would not fit into romantic fiction. At the Eden Project they fine people who use managerial language like “blue sky thinking”, “cutting edge”, “outside the envelope” etc etc.

He would have cleaned up at these awards if those rules still applied.

Among the nominees and winners were things like: “A Public Realm Design Guide for Hostile Vehicle Mitigation” or “Resilient Landscapes: What are they and how Useful is it for Landscape Architects to Adopt the Concept as a New Design Paradigm?” , “The Ingrebourne Valley Wayfinding Strategy” and “The Sensitivities of the Coastal Landscapes and Seascapes of Wales to Tidal Stream Developments”. I am sure they are all very worthy but suitable language for Romantic fiction? You would have to be pretty perverse to find any of that even faintly stimulating.

The images did not help much either, various pictures of roads and car parks. It was, I am afraid, an extraordinarily dull way to spend an afternoon which makes me sound fearfully ungrateful, I am not: the company on our table was delightful. It is just that the projects were so obfuscated with jargon and presented so uninspiringly that the minutes dragged. These are the people responsible for our parks and public spaces, our town centres and highways: they have an enormous responsibility (and pretty decent budgets looking at the number of people involved in each project) and opportunity to dramatically improve the ways we live. In some instances they do just that (there was a good scheme at Arnold Circus in London) but it is all about by-ways and access routes and interaction and social engineering: all very important, I know, but not exactly thrilling.

There was not a squat or jot about beauty which  is a great pity. Bring a bit more poetry into the proceedings. And put some life and excitement into your awards please. You (and we) deserve it.

Apart from that I have also been to Haywards Heath to see a garden called Borde Hill, to Devon to see a rather fine thatched farmhouse, to Windsor to talk about hedges, to London to attend the Chelsea Flower Show selection panel meeting and to see Wild Beasts in Oxford (iii).

I am listening to Grinnin’ In Your Face by John Mooney. This time last year I was watching breakfast television.

The moustaches are growing very well as you can see here. We have raised over £9,000.00 in the past three weeks which is amazing. Thank you to all of you who have donated – either your faces or your fivers. We have filmed a Three Men special in celebration:

The picture is of the stems of Rosa laevigata Coopers Burmese.

(i) Which always sounds like a nice place. It reminds me of the sort of bell that rings when you open the door to a particularly interesting shop. Selling sweets or buns or exquisite propelling pencils or long stripy socks. The owner is behind a glass topped counter wearing a brown serge apron. His shirt sleeves are kept conveniently hitched by those metal springy things specifically designed to keep your sleeves out of soup or wet ink.

(ii) Formerly home to the largest collection of stuffed animals in the world.

(iii) The band: not buffalo in Balliol  or warthogs in Wolfson.