This will, I believe be a very short blogpost as time is pressing but I thought I had better write something lest there is concern for my continued existence. Especially as today I managed to reverse my car into hearse. Fortunately it was only occupied by the living (although I suppose that the dearly departed would not have been that bothered) and all was fine.

I have recently returned from the Malvern Spring Show which was, as always, a great pleasure.

It did not begin well as on the first day, Thursday, there was nothing but mud and drizzle. Almost every grassed inch of the showground was squelchy underfoot: I worried that if it carried on like this then if any of our heavier visitors remained still for more than a couple of minutes they would sink slowly and inexorably into the fertile soils of Worcestershire. I spent that Thursday acting as Rachel de Thame’s less glamorous stand-in for Gardeners World. Which was fun if a little damp. The rest of the weekend was mostly sunny so I spent a jolly time frolicking with Carol Klein, Joe Swift and Terry Walton. All ring mastered by Katie Johnson. This is Carol looking even more glamorous than normal.

Carol Klein

Prior to that was Grand Designs at the Excel centre. When the weather is as vile as it has been there are certain advantages to being incarcerated in a large shed for hours with no access to daylight or fresh air. My thanks to the various designers who turned up and worked fearfully hard. Much harder than I did: I gave two lectures, one with Cleve West and one about which I had completely forgotten until five minutes before so had to run the length of the Excel rearranging slides on my iPad as I wove in and out of crowds and hot tub suppliers. I hope nobody noticed my woeful unpreparedness. I also gave two cooking demonstrations (fortunately accompanied by Mark Lloyd as left alone nobody would have learnt anything). Lamb Wellington with steamed vegetables followed by Chocolate Fondant if you really want to know.

After a few days of normal work and a quick visit to the showground where everybody was terribly busy and the rain fell: I did, however, manage to sneak a quick Three Men film for your elucidation.

I am now off to Chelsea to do a mixture of television things and being-an-important-RHS-council-member things. It will be interesting to see how the two blend together. For example all my fellow councillors are on Royals duty tomorrow ushering the Queen and others around the show with respectful gestures and loyal greetings. I am stalking them with a television camera.

I will see you all on the other side (of Chelsea, not the Styx: I am not allowing my hearse reverse to make me morbid.)

I am listening to a remix of John Cougar Mellencamp singing a little ditty about Jack and Diane (two American kids growing up in the heartland). It is still pretty dreadful in spite of the remixing.

The picture is of a beech leaf. Grateful to have it as there are precious few flarze around in this garden right now. I am hoping that the promised Chelsea sunshine will sort out the situation by the time I return.

I am sitting in the Novotel at Grand Designs, well not exactly at Grand Designs but very close.

There are a number of interesting things happening at the show including the customary handsome display of hot tubs. I am running a very smart Garden Design studio with my name on a big yellow cube dangling from the ceiling.

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The form is that there are four newly qualified garden designers giving free consultations while I hover and offer sage advice when required. All very jolly, you can come and take advantage of all this if you hurry: the show runs until Sunday night and Three Men are cavorting on stage in the afternoon.

The Novotel meanwhile has surprised me. My first impression was that it was the sort of place where former communist apparatchiks would come to drink themselves stupid, cavort with doughy thighed good time girls and, in certain cases, fling themselves from windows. Actually it is quiet, cleanish and has a view of the Victoria dock. The breakfast, however, is utterly loathsome: in particular the scrambled eggs.

After Sunday there is Malvern to look forward to next week. This will be my seventh Malvern (I think) in which time it has changed a great deal. This year there is more serious side to the show as the theme of Biodiversity runs through the things that are happening in the theatre: this leaves no room for Joe Swift and I to do flower arranging. This will doubtless come as a huge relief to the ranks of Floral Artists out there as we did little to promote high standards in the world of competitive floristry. Instead there will be wise words from Matthew Wilson and Jekka McVicar (on Thursday), Chris Beardshaw (on Friday), Joe Swift (on Saturday) and Mike Dilger and Terry Walton (on Sunday).

I will be flitting around doing links and other stuff including an interview with Sue Biggs on Friday morning: she is, as I am sure you know, the Director General of the RHS and a thoroughly good egg. If you wish to ask searching questions about the future of the organisation then this is the place to be – hecklers welcome.

We also have a book slot where I chat to various garden writers and you get the chance to buy signed copies of their glossy ouevres. Included are the Guardian Royal Bouquet correspondent, Lia Leendertz. Martyn Cox (who writes a couple of books a week), Noel Kingsbury (also very prolific but with a Phd: Martyn just has a gelled forelock),) Anne Wareham who will talk about her book -The Bad Tempered Gardener – which is opinionated and alternately annoying and amusing (a bit like picking a scab) and Mark “Veg Head” Diacono whose book, the Taste of the Unexpected, is quite old now but still very readable(ii)

I am exhausted already. I am hoping that there will be various bloggers and Twitterati loafing about as well.

I have also found some time this week to visit Arundel. Rather a pretty town with a castle and softly flowing river overlooked by gentle Sussex countryside blah, blah, blah. There is also a rather remarkable garden belonging to the Duke of Norfolk and designed by Julian and Isabel Bannerman.

My visit was quite fleeting so this will not be any more than a quick postcard but, in brief: Trademark whopping oak structures, some very floaty planting (excluding a rather ugly variegated elder at one point) and some spectacular fountains including a dancing coronet – a gold crown rotating on top of a high power jet of water surrounded by exquisite shell work.

Proper Bannerman showmanship in other words. Beautifully constructed, theatrical and exciting.

There is, however, a strange arrangement of rock and palm trees sitting in the middle of a grass labyrinth which I really could not fathom. Why was it there? It seemed like a step too far. There may well be a perfectly logical explanation but it looked cluttered and detracted from both surroundings and labyrinth. I must do some research to discover what is going on.

I am listening to the gentle hum of the air conditioning as I cannot work out how to open the window, nor can I understand the taps. There seems to be no clear indication which way is hot and which way cold so I am skittering between third degree burns and hypothermia. At the risk of sounding like a disgruntled old Colborn: what is wrong with having one tap labelled ‘Hot’ and one ‘Cold’.

The picture is of ants on peony buds.

(i) I was reminded by @nicelittleplace on Twitter the other day that the abbreviative noun for a group of floral artists is Flarts. As is “Over there is the Flart tent”. This is not intended to be at all pejorative but merely affectionate. The other acronym is for the Chris Beardshaw Scholarship Gardens who are known as the CBeebies.

(ii) It also has many other uses for those who have been given a copy as a gift but prefer not to read such stuff. For example, as a chopping board, a waterproof hat, a partially effective cricket box, a frisbee, an oven glove and a way of ironing out unruly body hair. It has also just been nominated for yet another award (yawn) this time by the Guild of Food Writers. I think it unlikely that any of the other authors (not even Anne) are in the running for that one. Bravo.

Last week saw the launch of the 2011 National Gardens Scheme Yellow Book. This is quite a spiffy affair held in the Festival Hall with a very superior line in canapes after all the presentation stuff is over. The President (His Honour Sir Joe Swift) blithered for a bit, Jane Owen (the Simone Signoret of the Financial Times), Wesley Kerr (he of the booming voice and Royal anecdotes) and I chuntered away for a while about NGS Gardens we have known. Joe then gave away a lot of money (i) (about £2,700,000) and we retired for lunch. The picture is of Joe doing the giant cheque thing with Emma Bridgewater – who makes rather nice NGS Mugs.

Oh, just before we went we gave this very small interview for the new Horticultural Channel. It is about 20mins in – although the rest is worth watching as well (you will notice the the snappiness of our suitings in comparison to the all weather gear sported by the other contributors.) Particularly the bit about the allotment lavatory based around a wheely bin.

Lunch was in the Skylon which, though good, was disappointing because,quite frankly, it was a bit low. Yes, it had nice picture windows overlooking the river but with a name like that I sort of expected something closer to the clouds. You would only bruise yourself if you fell out the window. Ann-Marie Powell was present so, as you can probably guess, it was quite loud. And a bit sweary. And very jolly indeed.

I have also done some work which is a novel change after swanning around South East Asia for weeks doing not much of anything. Have I mentioned the spanking new walled garden I am making ? I know I have on one of  the other parts of the internet that holds my collected drivellings (i). Anyway, the story is that we are building a stone walled garden accessed by three magnificent sets of steps and containing a rather fine greenhouse, lots of cut flowers and a selection of fruit and vegetables chosen and supplied by my learned (ii) friend Mark Diacono. Still a way to go.

I have also overseen the placing of a vast Bhutan pine. It arrived last week and was about the size of the articulated lorry that did the delivering. It was so big that the fork lift truck provided was incapable of moving it further than three feet from the lorry. A new lifting thing had to produced and everything ended happily. Damn thing better not die.

Dr Noel Kingsbury has written a book. This, in itself, is not news as he tends to churn out a couple every month or so: the latest is called Garden Designers At Home and includes various garden designers loafing around in their own gardens: these are generally pretty good, giving the lie to the thing about the “cobblers’ children going unshod”. I am delighted that the picture he has chosen to use of me is quite old and much tauter all round than the real thing although it is not as old as Cleve’s. He looks newly hatched.

Among other pictures: Joe Swift is as pink as a baby’s bottom, Tom Stuart-Smith looks a bit like a mischievous sprite (which not a description that usually pops into the mind), Ulf Nordfell has the air of a holidaying diplomat and James van Sweden is the spitting image Joe Swift’s Dad. That is probably enough personal comments. You can decide for yourself as Noel will be signing this book at this year’s Malvern Show.(iii)

Amongst Other News: the shows season is very nearly upon us…..

Exhausted from worrying about Kate’s dress? or panicking about the quality of cake? worried that you have missed out on the souvenir plates? fear not: distract yourself  by planning a visit to Grand Designs Live. It is almost the first show of the season (from 30th April – 8th May) and happens in the enormous barns at Excel in the Docklands. I have done this show (and it’s sister in Birmingham) a few times now. This year is a bit different as I have a Design Studio. Look, there is even a dedicated page on their website. It is an interesting idea: there will be a rota of garden designers giving out free consultations in half hour segments to visitors to the show. My role, I think, is to hover wisely and add both tone and extra information when required. Rather like a supervising professor (hopefully without the halitosis): my co designers are freshly hatched from the best colleges. As such they are much better qualified than me so I will have to watch my step. Bring along pictures, sketches or imaginative descriptions of your gardens and get some free advice. I will have some spare tickets.

On the last day I am also doing a Three Men Went To Mow Live slot with Joe and Cleve. We will not be doing the Stripper unless things get desperate.

The picture is of a magnificent Hellebore hybrid. I am listening to Johnny Cash (live at Folsom Prison) singing Give My Love To Rose.

(i) Actually, if you are really interested, it is here. My first Crocus post.

(ii) I use that word in the more obscure definition where it means not “scholarly, erudite and cultured” but  “lanky, feckless and a bit scruffy”

(iii) Michelle has already done a preview of this year’s show. You can read it here. More information will be trickling out over the next few weeks.