Hampton Court Flower Show

well, it's been a while, I've been busy with a variety of things -  a pain management program at the local hospital which has taken over a significant proportion of my non working time, and then this week, a whole week of my wondeful daughter. This included two days of girly shopping where I tried very successfully I might add, to repair the holes in my wardrobe left by what Ganna always referred to as "avoirdupois" - too many pounds to the likes of you and me!

However, Jen has now gone off to travel the world again - this time a short trip to Poland with a friend who comes from there, and my dear man and I had the pleasure of a trip to Hampton Court Flower Show, courtesy of Ray of Rotherview Nursery, who built me my front garden earlier this year. He shows at Hampton Court - and at Chelsea where, this year, they got a silver (Chelsea) and a silver gilt (Hampton Court), which is pretty damn good and follows previous successes.

We set off yesterday quite early, heading for the Park and Ride as advised on the RHS website. It took us some three hours from door to entrance gate, which was quite a trek, but once inside that was all forgotten. We've not been to the show before, so were determined to see plenty but not exhaust ourselves!

The first thing that caught my eye was this rather lovely group of poppy head inspired garden sculptures, lacy against the cloudy blue sky

The blue came and went, but the day stayed warm and we wombled about looking, looking and looking some more, finding ideas for our own garden and seeing things that were just lovely, or quirky or in some cases just a bit bonkers, including one, with a laudable message, called the coppafeel garden, which, with its saggy fabric breasts at the entrance, just didn't quite do it for me, but perhaps I didn't look hard enough, or have enough of an out there sense of humour!

Here though, are some that did

World Vision Garden

Hands On - with some thoughts to take away

I am, because of who we are

Copella Plant and Protect garden

The marquees were enormous, but this lovely display of afternoon tea at the vicarage roses from David Austin stood out

as did this firework explosion of eremerus, which I would love to have in my garden one day.

Once we'd looked at the show gardens, we went to eat, checked the plan of the space and realised that we'd only seen about a quarter of it so far! As I tend to get pretty painful if I push things too much, we decided to have a quick wander round the floral marquee, which looked pretty overwhelming from this perspective

but included Ray's stall, full of delightful troughs planted up with alpines, which are Rotherview's speciality, and won them a silver this year

Once we'd said hello, we escaped the melee and rambled back to the entrance, admiring the fountains on the long water

and in my case, being particularly charmed by these "rain trees", which, with their platter and splatter, I could have watched for a long time, were it not for my legs and back which were, by now, protesting rather!

So we loaded ourselves onto the obliging bus, waiting to take us back to the park bit of the park and ride, navigated our way through a number of confusing and very busy Saturday afternoon places, hooked up with the M25, then the M23 and rode the tarmac all the way back to Sussex.

Whenever I take this route into the rest of England, I really feel that I'm on my way home when I see this lovely view of the Downs, their long backs swooping down to the flatlands below Lewes. They always seem to be watching and waiting, while we humans, like little ants in our busy cars, hurry and scurry around beneath them, going from and to somewhere way beneath their lofty radar

Firle Beacon

Did we buy any plants? Yes, a little trio of rusty red; an echinacea and two achillea which will find a home soon and give the bees and buzzies a  treat I hope. A happy reward for a very enjoyable day.

Thank you Ray!