Below me are the lights of Moscow. I know this is a totally rubbishy photograph but it has a sort of surreal charm and is the best I could do – actually it is an example of our age when we take far too many photographs of things that really do not deserve to be photographed. There is the amazing statistic that we take more photographs every day (or is it every hour?) than were ever taken in the whole history of photography before the digital age. Every so often I sit down and spend an hour or so deleting photographs but still have 32,000 on my telephone. I reckon about 1,000 are precious or interesting, the others are just resting.

I digress, we were in (or rather above) Moscow as the sun sets into the flaming west. Why? well those of you who read this blog relatively regularly will know that for the past six years I have been involved with the Moscow Flower Show (there are Russia based blog posts here, here, here and, if you still have the stamina, here and here) and that time has come around once more so this is what happened….

Wednesday- I got back from Canada (see previous post) yesterday and less than twenty four hours later I am back in a taxi heading to Gatwick, this time in the company of the divine Nina Acton. I am not good company as my brain is a little coddled and slow acting. We eat hummus and get on a plane where I eat dubious chicken and watch Hell or High Water which stars Jeff Bridges and is remarkably good. Films for planes are sometimes difficult to choose as you want something that will divert but will not suffer from being watched on a small screen. Usually I go for light froth – I watched Bridget Jones’ Baby on the way to Canada. It was far too long:when I am elected to be ruler of the universe* my first act will be to pass a law insisting that no film should be longer than ninety minutes. If you can’t say what you need to in that time then you deserve to seven years penal servitude. The same may go for bloggers who do not stick to the point and ramble off about irrelevancies.

We land and get a taxi – eventually after a bit of a wait which allowed us the opportunity to enjoy some enthusiastic horn tooting ** – to a very large Soviet era hotel whose lobby is the size of a domestic aircraft hanger but with extra chandeliers. Bed is welcome.

Thursday – Judging Day. It appears that Nina has taken pity on me as the original plan was for me (and my International Jury) to judge seventy exhibits: gardens large and small, childrens’ gardens, art exhibits and trade stands. Nina will judge the latter and I will stick to gardens.

Judging gardens in Russia is a little different to judging at Chelsea. The criteria are a simplified version of the RHS criteria but the judges tend to wander off mid judging to make telephone calls, greet chums or take photographs of other gardens. I have to be quite fierce and bark at them occasionally but, being Russians, they are quite used to that and respond better to that than any English ‘Excuse me, sorry to bother you but would you mind? So kind, thank you so so much” sort of thing.
It is quite hot and we are interrupted by my having to go and make a speech about the year of ecology at the opening ceremony and then being whisked off to do an interview with Russian television – during my absence my panel wander off and give full marks to a garden that is far from perfect and a silver to one that is really very good. Cue more barking from me – and posing (this photograph is by Andrey Lysikov

Finally we finish at about 9.00 and mooch off and eat things in a largely empty but very beautiful restaurant. Russian restaurants have very comfortable seating – not for them small tables and upright chairs but squishy sofas and deep armchairs. Comfy but sometimes it makes access to the actual food a bit tricky.

Friday: I give a seminar on the trends at RHS shows which is always a bit difficult as they are looking for particular fashions and there aren’t any really so I talk about gardens generally in that strange staccato fashion that is necessary when being interpreted. When we come out the sky is an ominously brooding black which does not look good – a hurricane is forecast so the prize giving (or Solemn Rewarding as it is translated to me) is brought forward a few hours to avoid universal drenching. The problem with this is the medal cards are still being processed so there are gaps between categories. To fill the time we do communal dancing to a slightly dubious version of Super Trooper by ABBA – I dance on stage, they dance in the aisles.

Then the rain comes – it is quite spectacular and is accompanied by gales that whisk the puddles along the ground and rattle the trees. We remove ourselves from a tent and decamp to the rather more solid surrounding of the Museon where there are decent loos and proper coffee. Eventually it clears and I wander back to give feedback to as many gardens as possible – Russian designers love feedback. Almost without exception they take it well and enjoy the critique as they are eager to improve. When I first came here they were all badly planted with lots of gaps and plastic: the gardens are so much better now, although they still build them at the last moment.

We finish just after six and we are off for a treat – we have been given tickets to Il Trovatore at the Helikon Theatre. It has only been open for a couple of years and is in the old coach house of a large mansion once owned by the gloriously named E. Shakhovskaya-Glebova-Streshneva who put on all sorts of musical events in her home up until 1918. It was fabulous – although, like many operas, the story is a bit ridiculous and far fetched. A meeting with the organisers at about 11:30 finishes the day. They have stamina these Russians much more than us soft Brits who are used to being in bed by 10:15.

I fall into bed at about 1:00 with the pleasurable prospect of four hours sleep before the taxi arrives to take me to the airport. Except that this is Moscow and there is an all night rave going on just under my window which is joined in at 4:00 by what sounds like people dropping lengths of scaffolding onto a hard surface and then hitting them with hammers – listen carefully to the video below and you will understand.. Enthusiastically. Incidentally there is also an enormously long queue across the river of people waiting to see a particularly rare relic that is visiting from Italy. Russians are very pious.

Saturday:Airport is Saturday morning chaotic – imagine Luton in holiday season. We muddle through and I go to the executive lounge (which is very crowded) to eat free food of dubious quality and try not to sleep through the departure of my flight.

A short but, as always, eventful and entertaining trip. Next stop Hampton Court, Tatton Park and then no more travels for a while.

I am listening to Time of my Life by the Watson Twins. The main picture is of a baby rabbit in a show garden – eat your heart out Chelsea Flower Show.

*If Donald Trump can do it then I reckon that we all should get a go.

** Horn tooting is something that we British only do in extremis while other nations seem to rejoice in the practice. It seems to me to be remarkably pointless especially in a traffic jam as one has to assume that the people at the front are also trying to leave as soon as possible so horn tooting does not help. It is a futile gesture like appealing to the referee in football matches – he/she is never going to change their mind. Or indeed getting stroppy while receiving feedback at RHS Shows.

Sunday:
I am off on a trip…
Firstly, it involves a train from Banbury to Heathrow via Hayes and Harlington. Very simple in theory but, as is the way sometimes with the oft laid plans of mice and men, likely to gang aft agley. It is like dominos- one train is ten minutes late so you miss the next train by nine seconds (after a frantic rush across a bridge and a shove through an oncoming crowd ). This means being stranded on an empty platform at Hayes and Harlington for an hour before finally arriving at the airport.

I am going to Moscow to give a seminar nominally entitled Gardening across Continents with the aim to jazz up the world of Russian horticulture. More specifically to talk to them about show gardens, design and planting and also to talk about an exchange we have instigated at Malvern and about which I wrote in my last blog.

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Red Square at night

Monday:
It is an overnight flight- not long, only about 3.5 hours – in that it leaves at 10:30 (london time) and lands at 5.00 in the morning (Moscow time). I, however, am far to old and set in my ways for this sort of interruption to my routine. I go to the hotel and go straight to bed.

It is cold out there: about minus 10. This raises a few sartorial dilemmas: I emerged into the street all wrapped up like a bear in a duvet. Coats, hats, Horatio’s Garden Alpaca Socks (available here and a perfect Christmas Gift), gloves etc. I walk five steps and get into a car so hot that you could probably roast a duck in the glovebox. I then go to an equally hot office followed by a sweltering restaurant, another car and back to a hotel room where, in my absence, a diligent cleaner had cranked up the radiator. I flung open the window and welcomed as much icy air as possible. Tomorrow I will not be so thermally aware. The restaurant, by the way, was next to the Bolshoi Theatre and involved crab from Kamchatka (a species of red king crab that has a leg span of nearly six feet) and six different sorts of caviar.

Tuesday:

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Theatre filling up

The reason why I am here: I tootle along to the auditorium of the Moscow Museum where there is a milling multitude of assorted interested parties. I am quite happy giving talks of an hour or so but today I am doing four talks of about one and a half hours each plus a two hour Q&A. It is quite tiring – there is a relay of simultaneous  interpreters who do a sterling job trying to keep up with me: they change over every twenty minutes to prevent exhaustion. It is interesting as the audience each have a headset into which the interpreter drips a translation of what I am saying but, like an old fashioned transatlantic telephone call, five seconds after I have spoken which means that timing of jokes and frivolities can be a little tricky. You deliver a punchline, pause for reaction and then, just as you are about to give up, a small section of the audience – those who get the joke – laugh politely.

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Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah

The main purpose of the day was to drum up some entries for the Malvern/Moscow exchange so many participants brought sketches and ideas which continue to flood in – it will be a good thing and you should all come to the RHS Malvern Spring Festival to see what happens.

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I have no idea why there is a chicken on the lollipop stall

We retire to a Chinese restaurant where all the waitresses are dressed up as members of the Red Guard which seems like an odd thing to celebrate. They jazz up their khaki uniforms with very red lipstick. The food is delicious and we then troop off to Red Square where there is a bustling Christmas Market and a skating rink – which was sadly barred to us as it had been booked for some spiffy private party for Prada (I think). We posed for many photographs – for that is one of Russia’s favourite national activities and Valenkis (felt snow boots as worn, if I remember rightly, by Solzhenitsyn in “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch”) were bought for me. The snow is light but the air is a strange dry cold which seems innocuous at first but then gives you a headache and seeps into the bones.
It is fun and I dance with a group of people dressed as Christmassy Cossacks.

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Wednesday
And home again – first breakfast in the hotel, an early cab through the appalling Moscow traffic, second breakfast in the Aeroflot Executuve lounge (hmmm.) Third breakfast (strictly speaking an early lunch*) on the aeroplane as we fly through clear skies over miles and miles of snow dusted birch forest. Then an equally fabulous approach to Heathrow all along the river from the Thames barrier. Every landmark is clear and glinting in the sunshine – I can even pick out my mother’s flat.
Then four trains and home again.
The time difference may only be three hours but I feel as if I have been pushed slowly but steadily through a mangle .

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Birch forests, lakes and snow
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Millennium dome and the Thames

I am listening to Slow Movin’ Outlaw by Waylon Jennings.

The picture is of the Bolshoi theatre.

*Russians have a very charming way of saying lunch. ‘Then we will have a lunch…” pronounced larrrnch. Sometimes it is a “friendly larrrnch”.

My goodness, two blogposts in under a month: it is quite like the good old days when people used to read blogs and the world was not completely swamped with words.

Anyway it is that time of year again when I skip off to Moscow to judge the Moscow Flower Show. This will be the fifth year and it is always interesting – the gardens are usually a bit of a mixed bag but never dull. This is my week

Sunday:
Hampton Court for a recce, watch Iceland lose to France then return to the Teddington Travelodge. This is worth a brief mention as it is basically a multi storey car park with rooms and if possible should be avoided. There was a postcard on the bed which said (and I précis this rather than quote verbatim) ‘Welcome to the British summertime. For your convenience we have drawn your curtains to keep out the heat of the day, we have also removed your duvet and left you with a single sheet. We suggest that you open your window at night when the temperatures cool”. This is, we assume, in lieu of air conditioning

Monday is judging which was all very jolly. Then lunch, then feedback then drive home and try not to sleep on the M40.

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Tuesday :
Fly to Moscow. Aeroflot this time which has it air crew in very jaunty orange uniform: like a group of Slavic satsumas. I am eating mushroom risotto and fried almonds followed by a perfectly passable tiramisu
Clouds are funny things’ all soft and fluffy to look at but as soon as you go into one in an aeroplane they get all uppity and shake you about in a most alarming way. I had my knee firmly grasped by the very large man next to whom I was sitting on a flight from Glasgow the other day as we lurched through a crowd. I think he was very embarrassed.

Wednesday :
Began with Russian pancakes, boiled sausages and Brussels sprouts but, more importantly, it was judgment day.

Eccentrically the rest of the panel had already judged in my absence so I was mostly on my own and then added my marks to theirs. This resulted in some slightly odd decisions which I had to moderate. There are some okay gardens and a couple of shockers but this is a very young show which needs time to find its place. It would be even better if everybody thought about things a little earlier – some garden applications did not arrive until June – which is not something that we would tolerate at the RHS!

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Obviously, as this is Russia, we have to have dignitaries and speeches and a full blown awards ceremony with fanfares and clapping. I signed all the medal certificates and then, after a moment for a swift change of suiting, I showed the deputy British ambassador round the show. He was rather captivated by the idea of gardens uniting countries etc etc and it gave him a rest from talking about the Chilcott report to inquisitive Russian journalists.
We also had the minister of culture who made a longish speech* about something. Then various other people popped onto the stage and talked about how amazing everything was and how grateful we all are etc etc. Russians love a speech even more so if it is made by a government apparatchik. Then I made a speech and dished out medals: this involved two girls – one dressed in a Russian flag and one in a Union Jack – who darted forward and gave each winner a bunch of roses, a bag contains a book and some tea, another bag containing more tea and an MFS pen tidy. My job was to give out a certificate and kiss people when appropriate ** then there were more speeches and more certificates to everybody involved. This included the show’s pet Orthodox priest who has an amazing beard and comes every year to bless us all. He made a speech and was rewarded not only with the tea and roses but a Bosch cordless screwdriver.
Dinner followed in a former chocolate factory with a great view of the river.

Thursday:
I woke up this morning to a bit of a bit of a judging rumpus which always adds a bit of a frisson to proceedings. Facebook was jumping with a certain amount of disgruntlement so I had to pour a lot of oil on a lot of waters – if there had been a cormorant in the vicinity it would have been in trouble. I think all was fine in the end – the problem was that we gave one Best in Show rather than rewarding a best in each category of which there are many – Show, Russian, Balcony, Urban, Art, Chic,Trade etc etc. For some a Gold Medal is not enough…

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Having done this I tootled off to give a seminar to the assembled designers and interested parties about judging and show gardens and garden design in general. It was a long seminar with many questions.
I am now also the (apparently) only foreign member of Russia’s largest ecological society. Founded 90 odd years ago by Lenin’s wife they are responsible for planting about 5 billion trees and do work to improve the street planting in towns and cities all over Russia. I have a very smart badge.

Lunch was bortsch and dumplings followed by more feedback. Then a couple of interviews and time for a very swift change and off to a Ukrainian restaurant for dinner. This involved a particular national speciality called, I think, sala. Paper thin slices of pig fat wrapped around a sliver of raw garlic – it melts in the mouth but I am not sure that I am in a hurry to eat it again. This was not all there were, I hasten to add, many delicious things that were less piggy in particular little savoury pastries called Pirojock which I could eat all day if called upon so to do.

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More interestingly the restaurant was on the second floor and, on the other side of a glass partition was a large cow – chewing the cud and regarding the assembled diners with a look of abject scorn – a goat, a vast rabbit, some peacocks, a couple of golden pheasants and a very sturdy woman in national costume. It was very weird.

Friday
Home again, home again jiggetty jig via a certain amount of turbulence near Visby.

I am listening to Louise sin the Blue Moon by Alison Moorer.

*I have a very patient and diligent interpreter called Evgeny. He is a great pleasure to be with and is very good at his job. He also has an interesting mixture of pastimes. He looks very bland – which is his job as he is there to blend into the background – with a suit and tie but in his time off he has three cats, he reads an enormous amount, he goes to the gym and is a devotee of House dancing. He is a diamond.

** Russian social kissing involves three points of contact (right cheek, left cheek, right cheek again) so when you have thirty odd medals to give out and most of the awardees are women this takes quite a while and involves a lot of friction.

It is 2,505 kilometres from London to Moscow.

That is the sort of fact that might possibly be useful as a tie breaker in a fiendishly fought pub quiz. (i) However, for today it is the distance of my first leg of travel towards the city of Voronezh which is about six hundred miles south of Moscow. I am going there because they are having a flower show and have invited me to be a judge. I know absolutely nothing at all about what to expect or what is expected of me – although I think I have to do a 20 minute lecture about the Chelsea Flower Show at some point. I don’t really know why they are having a flower show or what form it will take. This is a plummet into a Russian horticultural abyss. It will undoubtedly be interesting.

Thursday
My lifebelt is stored under the central armrest and a nice stewardess called Anastasia has given me a glass of water and has thrust a copy of the Times into my lap.
“Do you speak Russian?” she says.
“Sadly, no” I reply
“Only English?” She says with a rising inflection of disapproval at my classically English lack of linguistic application. It is pathetic really that I (along with so many others from the English speaking world) speak no other language. My French is just adequate for survival provided that people speak slowly and without being too French about it. My German should be better – I was born there and lived there for a lot of my childhood – and that is about it. I got quite good at Spanish when I was in South America but have forgotten it all except Huevos. I have been going to Russia for the last four years and can only say Thank you. Not even “please may I have…”. We are very spoilt and Anastasia is right to disapprove.

19:30 (local time) I am sitting in Vnukovo airport waiting for Evgeny the interpreter to turn up. I am watching the travelling Russians. There are a number of girls with unfeasibly long legs and contrastingly short shorts. I would photograph them for you but am too old to get away with that sort of behaviour. Then there are a lot of quite lumpy middle aged people who bustle around with determined expressions. The transformation from sample A to sample B seems to be very sudden.
22:30 We are in an airport bus with rain battering on the roof and loud Russian pop music playing. It seems like a very long way to the aeroplane. You know the saying that everything in Russia is big? Not everything, this aeroplane is extremely small. They do give out boiled sweets though so it is not all bad.

Friday
Okay, we may not have slept much but we are off on a tour. First stop is the Russian Orthodox Cathedral (the third largest in Russia) where we are showed around by a priest called Constantine who spends the next hour or so talking about our immortal souls. We look at icons, genuflect to a box containing all (or part) of a long deceased saint and end up in the belfry where we are encouraged to ring bells. We do it very badly especially in comparison to Constantine’s efforts.

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We then go to an art gallery and look at buildings from the bus. The problem with a smallish city that was flattened during the war (only 8% of the place was left undamaged) is that the guide is forced to repeat herself. ‘On your left is the office of the regional government which we passed earlier. This is a very nice building in the style of the 19th century. In this park is a very famous statue of a dog…” etc etc. It is nice when people are proud of their hometowns.
“We are sorry that you have only had three hours to look around our marvellous City. However, tomorrow we will have five more hours to look at the sights but, for now we must work’

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And so the bus trundles us off to meet the governor’s wife and start judging.
We have judged. There are some gardens that are not at all bad but the most spectacular feature of the show is a village made of hay. There is a church, a windmill, animal pens ( with animals), swings, shops, food stalls, statues with scythes, etc etc. Quite remarkable.

11:30 That was quite a serious dinner. I have been coming here for a few years but this was a first. There was..
Smoked salmon, eel and sturgeon
Tongue, bits if cold pork and some other not immediately identifiable meat (with wonderful mustard that cleared the sinuses and flushed the spleen)
Pickled cucumber and garlic
Salted tomatoes
Four different sorts of cheese
Tomatoes, mozzarella and peppers
Pork
Sturgeon with apples
A soup that is slightly fermented and tastes a bit like flat coca cola with vegetables.
Veal
Pickled Fish
Salads (assorted)
Pancakes with red caviar
More pork
Tiramisu
Pancakes with chocolate sauce, cherries, almonds and ice cream
I may have left something out as I am lying on the floor panting with over digestion. There was also a lot of Vodka which I avoided.
There were five toasts and two speeches,

Saturday:
11:00 am The Governor has opened the show to much excitement among the populace. There were folk singers and dancers from every former Soviet country you can think of – Tajiks, Armenian drummers, Russian singers, Cossacks leaping around, small girls dressed as sunflowers, Uzbeks, small Georgians etc etc. it was all rather amazing. A very gnarly Russian called Vladimir with a walrus moustache and hands that seem custom made for strangling bears (he is the official in charge of hunting) is almost bursting with pride at the whole thing.

It is sad in a way that we do not have something similar. We have Morris Dancers but they are considered a joke rather than a source of national pride. Our folk singers are generally perceived as unnecessarily sandalled people singing in slightly nasal tones with a finger in their ear and their eyes shut. They do not tend fling themselves around belting out songs of love and patriotism. The Scots dance with verve, the Irish are the very Devils with a fiddle, the Welsh sing with a tear in their eyes but the English do not join in very often.

Perhaps our upper lips are too stiff.
Perhaps it is the secret to injecting some jazziness into Tatton Park.

12:00 I am dragged away before I can join in and disgrace myself to have a meeting with the Vice President of the region. This is what is described as “a meeting without ties” but in spite of the relaxed dress code it is frankly quite dull but enlivened by some interesting Russian biscuits.

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15:00 We are put back on the bus and taken off sightseeing (personally I would rather watch more dancing). We visit a theatre and then a replica of the first Russian battleship – built by Peter the Great. We go to a park which is under construction but sadly our excursion is curtailed by the sun going down and the necessity to attend the gala.
The city of Veronezh is en fête. There is mass salsa dancing, a dancing fountain (that steadily leaks so that those standing close have to retreat to higher ground as the water floods the square – I have climbed a lamppost so am out of danger and can see properly) a light and laser show and very loud Tchaikovsky. We then stand around eating things until bed time…

Sunday:
It is the parks and gardens forum. All the assembled Europeans are expected to get up and deliver a lecture – the subject I am given is English parks and the Chelsea Flower Show. The problem with giving lectures abroad is that you have to pause in mid flow while the interpreter interprets which means that a 40 minute talk can easily turn into an 80 minute talk as it is said twice. We have lunch and then the others are whisked off to see a castle while I go to give feedback to the gardens. This is fun as they take even my sternest criticisms with enthusiasm and equanimity. People want to learn stuff.

We finish in time for more dancing – Irving Berlin from the city philharmonic and wild Azerbaijani whirling on one of the gardens.as they are muslims then any male and female skin contact is not to be encouraged so the girl floats elegantly around the floor while the men take turns to chase her, stamping and preening like cockerels. They never catch her – It is a pleasure to see.

Dinner is similar to last night with lots of excellent Russian food but more toasts. It is our last night together and emotions run high – and get higher as the vodka flows. There is a cellist and accordionist in attendance. At one point all the Russian women start singing a traditional love song – they do this spontaneously and without embarrassment. Then there are eleven toasts. This is a very Russian thing where everybody stops eating to listen and people are thanked and praised and thanked some more. It is all very charming but also means that your food gets cold, not forgetting that eleven toasts means eleven glasses of vodka for the unwary.

Bed at midnight. Taxi to the airport at 4:00am. Two flights (ii) Home by lunchtime.

I am listening to Here are Many Wild Animals by A Camp.

(i) Even though I very seldom go to pubs I am well worth inviting onto your quiz team as I have, completely by accident, picked up a lot of useless facts over the past decades. What you need to do ideally is to sign up Mark Diacono and I then your team will be almost unbeatable. If that ‘almost’ is not enough then I suggest that you expand your acquisition policy to include my wife – who is astoundingly good at Beating the Intro.

(ii) There was a fly in the cabin of the Moscow-London flight. I wonder what it would feel like to be a displaced fly. One minute you are zipping about settling on pickled fish and a few hours later you find yourself in the Uxbridge branch of Chicken Cottage. Very discombobulating I am sure.

“In one minute I bring you cake.”

This is a phrase to lighten the heart of a chap. In this case it is uttered by a very slinky blonde air stewardess 30,000 feet above Poland en route to Moscow. It says a lot about my stage of life that the idea of cake is marginally more alluring than the stewardess.

I am travelling once again to the Moscow Flower Show this time with Transaero Airlines. This is not a company of which I had previously heard but they boast on their website of winning an award for Most Improved Airline so I must be grateful that I did not fly with them the first time I came to Russia. That was three years ago when I flew BA and had a full length bed in which to cavort. The next time was Aeroflot and not quite so luxurious. This time it is Transaero. My stock is obviously diminishing. However, as the flight is only 3.5 hours I reckon I can cope.

The in flight entertainment system is interesting. A screen flips down from the ceiling but it only has one channel showing a cartoon in Russian. The cartoon seems to involve handsome princes with improbably barrel chests; the ending will, not doubt, be happy but I am not sure that I have the patience to stick with it to the end. Instead I am going to read Raymond Chandler and watch Cat Ballou.

I have had lunch. Duck confit with something which is described on the menu as “coffee mustard jam” and a strange chicken thing with red potatoes which were very difficult to spear with the fork provided – I suppose that there must be a rule about blunt tines to avoid stabbings. Oddly the coffee-mustard jam was quite good – perhaps the fact that there appeared to be not a trace of coffee helped matters.

Arriving in Moscow is much the same as arriving in any airport anywhere except that the passport control people seem to look much harder at you than in other airports.

Day Two: Judging day at the Moscow Flower Show.
At Chelsea the judges usually assemble at about 6:30 to look over the notes and eat bacon sandwiches, we then sally forth and judge 17 gardens in time for lunch. In Russia things are a little different.
My schedule for today reads:
10:00 Judging commences
12:30 Official opening and press briefing.
13:30 Interviews
15:15 Break. return to hotel.
18:30 Gala evening (Cocktail dresses)
Which sounds perfectly manageable.
The reality is much more interesting.

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10:00 A wander around getting my bearings and finding out a bit about the gardens. There are 31 of them so if we were to judge them all by 12:30 then we would get 4minutes on each garden which seems quite tight!
11:00 We are still waiting for one of the judges to turn up.
11:30 We start judging. There are lively discussions and lots of sparkiness. All good.
12:30 Official opening to the press. Judging is halted: we have managed five gardens, it is very hot. There are a number of speeches in Russian ( I have a delightful interpreter called Evgeny who whispers a translation in my ear) and then I suddenly hear my name being called so hurriedly rush onto the stage and add my speech to the growing heap of welcoming words.
13:30 I give interviews to various television stations, newspapers, websites and a magazine called Snob. My co-judges are similarly occupied.
14:15 One of my judges has to go to work so leaves. We carry on judging. Another judge has to go and give another interview so we are down to four.
15:15 Lunch is announced so we all trek off to the other end of the park for a very welcome break. It is still very hot. You may recall that this was the time designated for return to hotel, quick snooze, change and back for the gala.
16:00 Back to work. The missing judge has returned but we have now lost another one due to heatstroke.
19:00 Finally we finish judging. Medals are listed and allocated.
19:30 Gala (I am unchanged and not very cocktaily) in which various Muscovite glitterati wander around and we eat cold meats on skewers. Clive Boursnell (the photographer) and I have a cup of tea.
20:30 I may have made a speech but I cannot quite remember.
22:00 Taxi.

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Day Three: Today I have done various things.
I have been rained upon.
I have helped to open the Flower Show to the public by sharing a podium with the Culture minister and the deputy mayor of Moscow.I made a speech.
I have given an interview to a journalist who was convinced that I was Prince Harry’s gardener. It seemed a shame to disabuse her.
I then went to Moscow’s 24 hour television channel where I gave an interview about urban greening to a shiny suited journalist called Ivan. We sat on opposite sofas in a huge studio. The conversation was very stilted as I would say something and wait for it to be translated for him, then he would say something and wait for it to be translated for me. It does not make for snappy repartee.
I had fish soup for lunch.
I made another speech and announced the winners of the medals – they were given out along with goody bags and huge bunches of Ecuadorian roses.
I then listened to more speeches.
I then made another, very short, speech.
I sat on a comfortable sofa and talked about museums and the restoration of imperial palaces.
I wandered around the show giving feedback.
I then danced with the show director to Mr Sandman.
I ate some rather delicious stuffed Russian buns. This is always a highlight – buns with spinach, buns with egg, buns with something obscure and buns with apple.
I drank some filthy pumpkin juice.
I went back to the hotel.

Day three
No speeches from me today which came as a bit of a relief to all concerned.
Gave out more feedback before being whisked off to the largest children’s hospital in Moscow to look at potential sites for gardens. It consists of a grid of early 20th century buildings surrounded by dour patches of grass and trees. I was photographed with the director who is delightful even though he looks a little intimidating.

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Launch of a new variety of rose. More speeches.
It is French day at the show so the French trade attaché is being feted.
More time on the comfortable sofa this time with a very insistent client.
Off to Red Square and the Kremlin for a bit of touristing. Trundle around the metro a bit.

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Day 4
It is raining. Hard. Lots of it.Proper old fashioned superpower rain.
I am going to the airport in the care of a taxi driver who is treating these monsoon conditions with disdain. As a result there is quite a lot of aquaplaning and nervous gripping of the upholstery.
We get there unscathed and return home. Quite knackered but in time for Hampton Court and to see my friend Ann-Marie Powell win a Gold Medal. Hurrah.

I am listening to Melancholy Polly by Alison Moorer. The picture is of a fountain in the Alexander Park by the Kremlin. You have to walk under these jets of water behind these enormously muscular horses bottoms. There has to be a metaphor in there somewhere.

I have, for the third year in a row, been to The Moscow Flower Show. This is my diary…

Day One and there has been judging in extreme heat. It may not have been exactly standard RHS Judging but judging all the same. The Russian system is roughly one of my own devising with the various categories adapted for the Slavic mentality. This year they took it one step further by never having all the judges in one place at one time. After judging there was Georgian food – something about which I have written in depth after previous visits. Suffice to say that cheese and meat are the main ingredients with the odd cleft cucumber and bunch of parsley. If you are a vegan then Georgia may not be the best place for you to spend time.

The gardens themselves are finished much better than in previous years and some of them are really good – considering the short time they have to build them and the vagaries of Russian landscapers. One designer complained that the landscapers had refused to dig holes for his posts and instead had sawn off the bottoms and nailed them to a plank. Not the sort of thing to which Crocus often resort.

At least one would have easily won a Gold Medal at Hampton Court. Easily. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photograph so cannot prove it to you.

Day Two was a day for visiting clients. I have two just outside Moscow. The first visit involved a fair bit of hard graft. “James” she said (although she pronounced it “Jems” which I find rather appealing) “I have two carloads of plants arriving this morning for you to set out”. By “cars” she meant “closely packed lorries”.

The process I employ for setting out plants is to look at the plan, look at the plants and then change my mind and this was not exception. The difference was that I was doing it while ten gardeners, a client, a landscape architect, a foreman, an enforcer, a driver, an architect, a landscape architect’s assistant, an interpreter and sundry builders watched. Now I quite like an audience but this was a bit much. No sooner had a plant been placed than scores of eager workers descended on the poor thing and it was planted in seconds. At one point I queried the position of a 4m high tree (which had been planted in October) -and  before you could say Vladivostok it had been dug up and moved to a better position.

The second client was much easier and just wanted to show me what had been achieved. The plan had been adapted slightly but that is the Russian way – one cannot be precious. She then fed me cherry dumplings which, I can tell you, is one of the very best things I have ever eaten. I ate nine of them and could have had more but thought that might be pushing diplomatic relations. If Mark Diacono can replicate them then I am prepared to do most of those things he keeps begging me to do. Trafficy drive back to the city chatting to my very charming young interpreter who has, over the past couple of days, developed a bit of a taste for gardening.

Friday is seminar day. I am to deliver a talk about Britain in Bloom.
It is very disorientating giving a lecture through an interpreter. Jokes are pretty much impossible, spontaneity interrupted and any kind of nuance is not even worth considering. It is particularly difficult when the interpreter sounds as if he is reciting the Siberian telephone directory very slowly indeed.

I am followed by a chap called Jago Keen who talked about trees in cities and then by the Mayor of a small city founded by the Soviets to house factory workers. He is a remarkable fellow who has taken the idea of urban greening to a whole new level. Fifty percent of his townsfolk are involved. There are flowers everywhere, vegetables in other places and almost every weekend there is a garden party somewhere. All the local residents bring food and drink, there is then dancing and games. It is a cross between a village fete, a street party and a ceilidh. There are no cigarette butts in the streets, almost all the rubbish is recycled and there is a strict policy of planting five trees for every tree that is felled. Much of the audience has followed him, they are almost exclusively women many of whom boast a lot of gold teeth which leads me to suspect that the dentists as well as the Gardeners are doing okay in that particular corner of the country.

The day then lapsed into one of those gloriously eccentric Russian days in which the following happened
I gave a television interview to a pretty but supremely uninterested girl. The cameraman picked up the whole camera including tripod. At one point and moved it. I doubt that it will make the programme.
I ate pasta which sitting on a sofa.

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Wrote out medal cards for every garden and certificates thanking every sponsor, media partner, visiting dignitary and interested party.
Gave a guided tour of the show to the British Ambassador – who was impressively bearded and accompanied by charming children.
Presented the aforementioned prizes one hour after the scheduled time. The audience had been patiently waiting in the slightly chilly Moscow evening.
There was loud fanfary music, more speeches, emotional thank yous, applause, plaques and the solemn presentation of gift bags containing tea by girls in interesting corporate uniforms. One lucky girl was given a chainsaw. And all through this there were photographs – hundreds of photographs. Russians love photographs and no event remains unpictured.
This took a while.

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One of the popular features at the show are a series of headless torsos made of flowers – people queue up to pose behind them. A variation on those cut outs through which you can poke your head at the seaside. Seemed like an unmissable opportunity.
There was then an extravagantly dressed buffet with cold meat, delicious cucumbers with very thin skins and a variation of the old pineapple and cheese on cocktail sticks thing but with gooseberries and raspberries .
I them spent a very jolly hour dancing to, among other things, Boney M with a collection of happy Russians and jolly French people. The Italians had bailed out earlier.

The evening had not yet ended.

The finale was a trip on the Metro: the Moscow underground is a serious deal. Built in ? the stations are as grand as ballrooms and as cavernous as a gilded pothole. The trains rumble through every minute or so and, at rush hour, are stuffed with fragrant Muscovites. At 11 PM it is almost empty and like riding through a cathedral.

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Day four begins with a 5:30am taxi ride. The back of my taxi driver’s head is fascinating. He is slightly balding with short cropped hair but the skin on his head is rippled: like a little piece of sharpei grafted onto a kiwi fruit
He is driving very fast indeed.
Russians have a habit of saying “Good luck when they leave you in the same way that the German guard says it to Gordon Jackson in the great escape. Both the taxi driver and the pilot did it, maybe it is a transport thing.

Finally I am happily settled in the aeroplane being fussed over by a very flirtatious steward called Aleksander. There are no films on this flight so I guess that flirting is the alternative to inflight entertainment. Even though it is still very early.
The man across the aisle is sleeping loudly with his hand covering his crotch – I presume that he is probably having an interesting dream.

Home by lunchtime.

I am listening to Weary Blues by Madeleine Peyroux.

The picture is of a Moscow sunset.

Come with me, we are off on a jaunt….

Tuesday 5:30am is a thoroughly uncivilised time of day. Unless it is midsummer and one has gone to bed early the night before in which case it has a lot in its favour. On a very cold April morning the prospect is not as attractive.
I am going to the airport, even better I am being driven to the airport by a friendly chap whose name I do not know. This is rather awful especially as it has gone beyond the moment when I can ask him, too much water has flowed beneath the bridge, too much jam has oozed from life’s doughnut to make it easy. He is very good at not saying anything after the first five minutes when initial pleasantries have been exchanged. He drives, I sleep, all is well.

7:30 Heathrow,Terminal 5. As a treat I am flying Business Class (for only the third time in my life which means that it is still exciting, although it also means that I am a complete wuss in the frequent flyers club) so take advantage of all facilities. Executive lounges, free bacon rolls, newspapers etc. I try to look blasé while stuffing shortbread into my pockets.

9:00 I am in one of those head to toe, soixante-Neuf seats with only a steamed glass partition between me and a large Slavic lady with alarmingly manicured nails. I am being offered Halibut with dill and creme fraiche which I do not really think is altogether proper at breakfast time. So I have eschewed it in favour of a croissant.

12:00 (15:00 local time) I am on a train hurtling from Domedovo Airport to Moscow having been whisked from Arrivals by the delightful Sofia. This is a world of dirty snow: huge banks of the stuff piled up wherever it won’t get in the way. In parks, corners of yards, cul de sacs and central reservations. Oddly, however, it is not cold in fact my cautionary thermal vest is proving an inconvenience.

16:00 We get off the train and are collected by a smooth young man with a cab who takes us to see client number one in the offices of her architect. We conduct a meeting where I try and get the facts together while eating biscuits. There are also fairy cakes containing plums, crystallised fruits and chocolate eclairs. Russians are very hospitable.

17:00 Back into the hands of the smooth young man and a struggle through the Moscow traffic past the Kremlin and the Bolshoi theatre to the hotel. This is terribly swish and infinitely better than the concrete block where I thought I was headed. I am on the sixth floor which has its own reception and a lift which is only accessible by those of us with the correct cards. This means that I am safe from the depredations of any lissome Russian girls which is a good thing, at my age one has to limit one’s consumption.

18:00: Another client meeting over dinner in the Vogue cafe. It is still the Orthodox Lent so there is a special menu for the devout. I eat Stroganoff which rather puts me on the opposition team. There are many beautiful girls who, I presume, are very religious as they appear to be undernourished.

Weds breakfast: Assorted fishy things on offer again and alarming Russian sausages that look as if they will burst at any moment so stuffed are their skins.Today is going to be a little hectic,I feel. mind you, all Moscow days are hectic the city seems to run at a ridiculous pace, days flash by without a wasted moment.

10:00: Today I am visiting two gardens for clients, I have worked out that this is not going to be quite as straightforward as it would be at home. I am correct in this supposition in that they are both covered in snow, not the sort of snow to which we are used but the sort of snow into which it is possible disappear up to your thighs at every step. In other places it is three metres deep.

This makes garden assessment a tad tricky. “Yes” say I “I think perhaps a path looping round through that snowdrift, past that snowdrift and probably ending up in an arbour of some sort right there in that snowdrift”. Not exactly exact specifying.

Among other things I have noticed:

Russians and, presumably, Canadians ,Nepalis, Ski instructors and penguins must have amazing balance. Walking on so much snow all the time is quite treacherous, I felt as if I was about to fall on my face all the time. Not exactly the image of the sophisticated international garden designer, spread eagled in a filthy slush pile.

Secondly, in spite of the immense size of the country, Russians like to live right next door to each other. There are lots of new developments carved into the forest around Moscow where houses of many different styles (brick mansions, log cabins, modernist pieds a terre and symphonies of lime coloured stucco and regency stripe) are being built. Many of them really very close to their neighbours so much so that much of my job involves planting barriers, it slightly begs the question; why not spread out a bit?  this is not exactly Luxembourg when measured in square yards per person.

Thirdly, Russian officials like to wear very large caps. It is a hangover from the Soviet era when all generals wore caps with crowns that seemed a little out of proportion- like those really big plates you find in restaurants upon which waiters place other, smaller plates. Chargers, I think is the correct term. This applies also to policemen, traffic wardens and (as here) hotel commissionaires.

2:30  I know that by now you will be concerned that I have eaten nothing for a while, fear not at client number two we sat in a shed and drank sweet Russian tea with little biscuits, chocolate thingies wrapped in coloured foil, small cakes and a choice of cherry, apple, orange and grapefruit juices. So, two clients down, we drive back through the slush to Moscow for lunch, at 4:30 in a very delicious Chinese restaurant.

5:30 Then an interview about the Moscow Flower Show then I am whisked off (with seven minutes to change and shower) to the Bolshoi to see La Traviata .

6:30 We go through a private entrance to a box very close to the stage.This was something else, I have never seen Traviata even though I know it well so it was an amazing evening. Proper Imperial lushness, Gold and scarlet walls, ceilings and upholstery all recently refurbished. Wonderful singing, fantastic dancers and guest appearances on stage by a horse, two salukis and some doves.

9:00 Thursday  Gorky Park by Metro and the wind off the river is icy cold. Unsurprisingly as there is ice floating down the river, great big chunks of the stuff. We view the area of the park that will, come  June, be the show ground. At the moment it is covered in ice and snow. Quite a lot of it.

10:00 A television interview and a chat with a famous Russian actor who is worried about my cold ears so insists that I keep his Roberto Cavalli bobble hat. I feel a little guilty about this as he has less hair than Joe Swift.

11:00 Sushi in a department store and another interview, this time with a rather bemused financial journalist. I try to convince her that business should be excited by the idea of a flower show. She remains bemused.

12:30 Drive to the station, catch the airport express, check in etc. The woman at passport control spends a lot of time comparing my face to my passport. I am not exaggerating look at passport (10 secs), look at me quizzically (15secs), look at passport again (5 secs), hold up passport to compare to face (5 secs). Shrug, stamp, let me go. What does one do in such situations? Smile. Look away? Stare back with love in ones eyes? Sneer? I don’t know. Either I look very much older than I did when the picture was taken or she regarded my mere presence with great suspicion. Thank goodness I have lost my temporary beard or I could be in the cooler.

5:15 On plane, back soon.

The picture is Russia from the air. I am listening to Chillout Tent by The Hold Steady.