Trains Archives | James Alexander-Sinclair

Hullo. I have decided to venture into one of the dustier corridors of my life – this blog. Time was when I used to check on its progress every day, I would write regularly and comment on other people’s stuff. This was in the heyday of the blog but, as most things in the modern (or indeed ancient) world things move on and we all now spend more time on social media than wading through blogs.

Still, it advertises itself on my website and therefore it is important to update these things occasionally. I have noticed that most of my posts over the last couple of years have been about travel. I have been lucky enough to swan around the world looking at and talking about gardens. Obviously that stopped a year or so ago – soon after I came back from Seattle where the North West Flower and Garden Show was probably the last (1) flower show before the world ground to a halt. Now we are slowly emerging, blinking like naked mole rats, into the light of normality. I have been very lucky in that I have not stopped working and, indeed, have become ridiculously busy as people spend more time at home and decide to do something about their gardens.

So today I have decided to go on a public transport jaunt…

04:50AM: The alarm goes off and I stumble out of bed. An apple in one pocket, a banana in the other and I am out into the cold morning. Unseasonably icy but bright and beautiful.

06:15AM: Milton Keynes station as I am catching the 06:23 train to Glasgow. Day trips to Scotland are something I have been doing for ages but there are very few aero planes at the moment so train is the only option. Four and a half hours each way but the views are interesting, the trains virtually empty and, because I am old, I get a special deal on first class so things could be worse.
And I am going to Glasgow to see my Horatio’s Garden and that is very exciting.

06:45AM: I have been given a breakfast box and a cup of coffee. The latter is pretty disgusting but better than nothing. The former contains two doughy croissants (the sort of pale imitation that would drain the blood from the ruddy complexions of the Parisian guild of boulangers), a yoghurt and some cheese spread.

08:04AM: I should be working but instead am writing this as we hurtle through Crewe and whizz past Warrington Bank Quay

08:48AM: Drawing on a train is really shoogly. The train manager is making frequent announcements in a Glaswegian accent as thick as a slab of black bun (2) which makes the message (that we are six minutes late) difficult to fully comprehend. Outside the window the Lake District is sparkling. Sheep, drystone walls, the River Lune and the picturesque open cast Kendal Mint Cake mines.

09:30AM: Carlisle. We always used to stop here on the way to visit my grandparents in Scotland. The most exciting thing was a bakery that sold bright green, mint flavoured meringues. They were laden with artificial additives and were probably revolting.

09:52AM: The novelty of this journey is wearing off mostly because the train is swinging around and is making me seasick. We are in the borders where there are far too many conifer plantations. Dark and depressing when growing, worse when harvested.

10:36AM: The edges of Glasgow are never terribly alluring but the station is a good one. Quite odd though as all shops firmly closed – except Boots where I found a bargain box of Sushi for £1.00. It never seems quite right to buy food from the same place as once might buy corn plasters or condoms but I was starving.

11:20AM: Horatio’s Garden, Scotland is glinting in the sunshine. Fresh birch leaves, loads of Narcissii, Fritillaries en fete etc etc etc. The best thing though is seeing Sallie and the other volunteers, to see patients picking flowers in the woodland and everybody happy.

5:00PM: I am back at the station where I am greeted by some extremely stoned people lying on the ground and doing a lot of shouting. Nothing like a bit of local colour. I am given an Afternoon Snack box which is considerably weirder than ther breakfast offering – it contains a fruit scone and some chicken pate.

7:30PM: The Lake District is still sparkling as we trundle south finally ending up at Milton Keynes at about 11:00PM which, if I am honest, does not sparkle much although that might just be me as it has been a very long day… only another hour’s driving before bed.

I was listening earlier to Just A Minute. The top picture is Tulip Slawa

for some unfathomable reason spellcheck decided that at this point I was not writing the simple word “last” but “lasagna”.
for those unfamiliar with this – it is a Scottish cake traditionally served to first footers at Hogmanay. It is basically a fruit cake wrapped in pastry because (obviously) a fruit cake on its own will not provide enough saturated fat.

I love trains. Sometimes

Not in a nerdy kind of a way – I did not even have s train set when I was a child preferring instead to opt for Scalextric. It was one of the two massive decisions I had to make before the age of eleven. I thought Scalextric was a more modern option: in reality it is quite dull as there are only so many times that you can race a car round a figure of eight without it becoming tedious. There was a knack to getting exactly the right amount of pressure on the throttle so that the car reached optimum speed without flying off the track. I remember the smell of burnt out electric motors very well.

Perhaps, had I chosen trains then I could have had fun making hillsides, cuttings and little trees out of sponge and might have discovered gardening earlier and thereby saved myself a shedload of trouble.

My other major childhood decision was whether to have a Secret Sam or a Johnny Seven for my 8th birthday. Both were guns: the Johnny Seven had seven weapons including a detachable pistol and a missile launcher. The Secret Sam was a suitcase which had a periscope, a hidden camera and a secret gun that shot bullets from the side of the case.
I chose the Secret Sam but was always torn when visiting friends who had Johnny Sevens.
The grass, as has been previously noted, is always greener.

Which brings me back to trains. I went to Harlow Carr this week (always a pleasure even though it has poured down with rain the last three times that I have visited. The question was do I drive or do I get a train? Hmmm…
The sensible decision was to get a train as that way I might be able to do something else like write or work or even sleep. This last was a particularly good idea as the evening before I had been giving a talk in Somerset to a delightful gardening group called Fagus * and had got home quite late.

A complicated itinerary was arranged involving an early train from Banbury, a change in Birmingham, another in Leeds and arrival in Harrogate in time for a meeting at eleven. However, as Rabbie Burns knew only too well, the best laid plans “gang aft agley” and the trains were arranged so I had time to get from one platform to another: all this went kaput before 6:30 in the morning when, for some unfathomable reason, train number one was thirteen minutes late so I then missed every connection. The only advantage of this was that I had time to get a cup of coffee in Birmingham. I do not like Birmingham New Street mostly because it is very confusing, especially when an elderly bloke is sprinting up stairs and across concourses. You have to go through one barrier and back through another and all the platforms occupy underground hangars – like cruise missiles. My final grumble is that all the trains have an annoying habit of coming in to the station and going out backwards so you think you are facing forwards when actually you are facing backwards.

I got to Harlow Carr eventually (an hour late) but the adventures were not yet over. My train home was supposed to be direct from York to Banbury but something else went wrong and we were all turfed out in Birmingham and had to run for another train that was then massively overstuffed – and delayed!. Not a good day for travel. Six trains: four delayed.

I have just realised that this blog is very, very boring so I will stop before I start grumbling about something else. I am listening, by accident rather than design, to the Spice Girls singing Stop (from their seminal second album Spice World).

*It was the third time I had been invited there (2010 and 2013) and they are always a jolly crew. The talk is given in the Methodist church which is big and technically well endowed. My subject, however, was Sex, Death and Gardening and it included a short film of Cleve West watering his greenhouse while in a state of complete undress. This went down well with the audience but seemed a little at odds with the religious surroundings. I am not sure whether the President of the Council of Methodist Bishops would approve of Cleve’s bottom in spite of the fact that it is undoubtedly a particularly fine specimen.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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”.

I have learnt, after nearly ten years of writing this (and various other) blogs that every so often one should mention cats if one is to maintain a certain popularity among one’s public. Especially as my last post was mostly about folk dancing.

Nothing razzes the masses more than a blog about cats.

I do not currently own a cat although I have had a few in my time – Ophelia was the first: very spirited until she ate a lump of hashish and had to retire to Ireland.

Cardinal Richlieu had at least fourteen cats (Soumise, ,Ludovic the Cruel, Serpolet, Gazette, Félimare, Racan, Rubis sur l’ongle, Lucifer, Ludovisca, Perruque, Mimi- Paillon, Mounard Le Fougeux, Gavroche, Pyramus & Thisbe

Gertrude Jekyll had even more including ones called Tittlebat, Toozle and Pinkieboy (which is the sort of name of which most self respecting cats would heartily disapprove).

St Gertrude of Nivelle is patron saint of both gardeners and cats. I am not convinced that the cats appreciate this fact as much as the Catholic Church.

On other matters I have been to Sunderland for the Britain in Bloom. A double first – never been to either before now. Both experiences were delightful, Geordies (are we allowed to call people from Sunderland Geordies ? Or is that reserved for Newcastle?) are very friendly people: on the Metro people talk to strangers. I had a series of jolly chats with everybody I met: the cab driver was extremely garrulous and had many opinions – not all of which I fully understood. He showed me his firearms certificate, told me about his various rifles, related the story of his landscaping of his girlfriend’s garden (not a euphemism), told me about his dyslexia, his grandfather and his almost mystical control over dogs. All this (and probably more) over a seventeen minute cab ride. I had another cab driver who told me all about his life as well – not quite as interesting but I know a fair bit about his children and the best places to go in Sunderland for a late night pint. The girls who ran the Premier Inn were delightful – and very enthusiastic. At dinner, I fell wildly in love with the charming Lady Mayoress of Sunderland.
We southerners are really very grumpy in comparison.

On the train home I picked a carriage with two parties going on – initially, did not know they were parties as the train left at 8:15 and the drinking had barely begun. The noisiest was a party of lads going to watch Sunderland play West Bromwich Albion. As we trundled through Durham, York, Leeds etc the volume increased until, by about Derby, there was loud, good natured singing*. Then things went a bit bad as they were joined by another very drunk boy ( not a Geordie nor a Sunderland supporter ) who had obviously been having a little party of his own further down the carriage. He then started loudly swearing (mostly about the Pope) as well as singing. This was altogether too much for two Geordie matrons who stood up and tore a sizeable strip off the boys for bad language and general loutishness finishing the tirade with “Your mothers would be ashamed of youse”. There were embarrassed apologies and general contrition all round. Peace was restored and reigned until Birmingham New Street when they disembarked.

The Britain in Bloom beano, by the way, was delightful. Lots of happy people getting prizes for some excellent work in towns, cities and villages all over the country.

Other places I have been since I last saw you include Glasgow, Somerset, Leicestershire, Derby, Bath, Edinburgh, Lincolnshire, Harrogate, Malvern, Lincolnshire, Cornwall and Sezincote (whose autumn colour is shown above)

I am listening to Pilgrim by Steve Earle .

* “He’s got a Carling on his head..” was one chant. This was sung when one boy had a can of Carling balanced on his head so was perhaps less of a chant and more of an observation. It as repeated when the can was passed around and put on somebody else’s head.

I am returned from London after a long and dull day. Forgive me while I do a bit of travel grumbling. It won’t take a minute, I promise.

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.

I have been to Devon which is usually a pleasure but this visit was particularly delightful.

At least it became delightful once I got there after much panicky rushing about missing the train due to a bit of a snarl up on the A34. I am really bad at getting to places on time: I always leave it too late and often end up a puffing, sweaty, breathless heap having run across pedestrian bridges and through underpasses in order to fling myself into trains at the very last moment. At least I only missed one train. I have, in the past, missed a train, waited an hour for the next one and then missed that one as well because I was too involved in a slightly sub-human chocolate Brownie.

Anyway, the purpose was to visit the RHS garden at Rosemoor in the company of the divine Hayley Monckton, the delicious Juliet Roberts (editor of Gardens Illustrated), the delectable Laura Tibbs and some lanky gingery bloke who smelt faintly of cider and Szechuan peppers. The chap who won best in show at Chesea last year was also invited but declined so he is now persona non grata until he comes up with generous presents for all. It was the logical extension of a visit I wrote about a while ago about the Wisley Six. This was the Rosemoor Five, six if you include the curator, Jon Webster, who showed us round. Here is a photograph of us drinking tea – and, in my case, looking uncharacteristically camp.

Rosemoor was given to the RHS in 1988 by Lady Anne Palmer. The existing gardens were extended to a plan by the current RHS President Elizabeth Banks and are now visited by 100,000 people every year. It is in a very lovely spot, all snuggled up in a long valley surrounded by mature trees and overlooked by the village of Great Torrington . The gardens have been divided into sections by a collection of beautifully clipped hedges- some Holly, some box, some yew and some privet. There are rose gardens, late summer flower gardens, a cracking winter garden, foliage gardens, arboreta, vegetable gardens, a cottage garden (with wedding venue arbour), woodlands, allotments, a nascent Forest garden etc etc etc. All the things that one would expect and more: and things one would not necessarily expect like Action Man in a rowing boat.

The thing about RHS gardens – and this is a bad thing if one is looking a them from the narrow viewpoint of pure design – is that their destiny is to be a little bit of everything. This is their purpose and raison d’être: to ensure that anybody visiting not only enjoys the gardens but learns something. The garden is intended to be something for everyone and as such it loses some cohesion: that is not to say that parts of it are not very well designed it is just that it is in the nature of such things to be a little disjointed. However, it does fulfil its intention and, as such, can be considered a huge success. It is well cared for, extremely beautiful in parts and feels much less starchy than Wisley (that may be partly because of the rather stern brickwork of the latter) and is a very laid back place to be. Particularly impressive were the fruit gardens (although we would, naturally, never have dreamt of picking any) and the light which was staggeringly lovely. And the ice cream.

We then dined in a pub where we seemed to be the only punters: according to the cidery chap people in Devon start a bit later and the pub was likely to be buzzing by 10:30. Either that or nobody liked to be seen anywhere near us. We ate enormous steaks and quite a lot of pudding before returning to the Best Western in Tiverton. A fine day out although without clotted cream.

Still on the RHS thing I have also sat on the selection panel for next year’s Chelsea Flower Show. We spent a very interesting day trawling through the Show Gardens submissions. With this I have to operate the same principle as the Council meetings: i.e. I cannot really tell you what was discussed so will concentrate on the food, we had an interesting lunch out of lacquered Bento boxes. But without chopsticks. Suffice to say, there will be some very good gardens next year: designed and built by some fine folk. There, that is possibly the most non-committal and anodyne thing I have written in a while.

I have also been to Lancashire. Three hours there, three hours back and an hour talking about the garden. I don’t really mind that provided that I don’t have to drive. I try to get a fair bit of stuff done on the train- writing, emailing, reading all that stuff but also think it very important that the last half hour is spent watching a film.On this occasion I indulged myself with Ice Cold In Alex. I had forgotten how closely Anthony Quayle’s shorts teeter on the obscene: any slackness in his underwear and the entire veldt would have been on safari. As you can perhaps appreciate from this screen grab….

What else have I to report? an avalanche of plant lists has just descended upon me. Not suddenly, but I have been ignoring them and can do so no longer with impunity. In fact I must now take my finger from the dyke (i) and do them right now without delay or further hindrance.
While I do them I will listen to Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings singing Mama Don’t Like My Man.
The picture is of backlit Phlomis russeliana at Rosemoor.

(i) Honi Soit Qui May Y Pense.

Wednesday 6th July….

03:50 I left the house before 4AM today to catch a train to London. This is not something that I habitually do, in fact it seemed like a really rotten idea. I am now on what used to be called “the milk train” in the novels of PG Wodehouse. It was sometimes necessary to catch this train to escape from an awkward moment during a country house weekend.On this train, however, there is no milk just rather tired looking people.

06:20 St Pancras International. I have run from Euston to here which is not very far but still a bit exhausting for a chap of my age at such a ridiculous hour of the morning. So I am now ensconsed on the Eurostar to Brussels clutching a surprisingly good cup of coffee and a ham and mozzarella Panino.

There is a man near me wearing a very respectable and well cut suit, silk tie and a large ring through his septum. The effect is strangely disconcerting.

The train manager is called Didier which is one of those comfortingly French names which has no obvious English equivalent: I am hoping that he will shrug and say Bouff a lot.International travel is not as interesting as it used to be, when I was a child we lived in Germany off and on and I can sort of remember our car being lifted on and off the ferry by crane.It took ages to go anywhere and aeroplanes were an exotic luxury. I also remember checking in at the West London Air Terminal (which is now Sainsbury’s at Earls Court) and riding in a double decker bus to Heathrow with the baggage in a trailer behind the bus.God, I am sounding old bufferish again.

07:07 I am underground and underwater. My younger son remarked what a disappointment the Channel tunnel is on first meeting as he expected it to be transparent and rather like an exotic aquarium (albeit muddier) as opposed to resembling the Northern line at Goodge Street.He has a valid point.

07:30 We have emerged, spluttering, from the water and are in France. Actually it is 08:30 as the clocks are different in these parts.French electricity pylons look like cats faces.Slightly malevolent cats hell bent on sharpening their claws on your best armchair.

10:22 I have traversed Brussels.Foolishly I left my itinerary on my desk so I hope that I am on the right train.Belgian trains are blessed with ugly engines but large seats. Must be the chips. Or the EU.I would quite like to learn Flemish as it sounds interesting and yet is pleasingly useless.

11:10 We are trundling through the outskirts of Antwerp which, to be honest, could be the outskirts of any city.Except that their allotments and streets and car parks are much closer to the railway lines than ours are.This is not necessarily a good thing but it seems that they are trusted more than we are. If I wanted to garden next to a railway line I am,sure that flocks of well meaning people in bad suits would come out and stop me on the grounds that I might wander on to the line or get heavy metals in my carrots. At the very least I would have to hoe while wearing a Hi Visibility vest.

11:18 I have very nearly just got off at the wrong station. Interestingly the doors to the train opened when we were moving.The station was called Kiudijeikki or something similar.It appeared to be in the middle of a field so failing to get out was probably a blessing in disguise.

11:46 Another train, this time from Rosendaal to Middelburg. We are in another country: the Netherlands. This train is a bit rough with dirty windows and hose down seats.

Oh my I am now hemmed in by very young, not entirely clothed Dutch blondes as pert as a shelf of chilled Gouda. They almost certainly have not registered my existence. The invisibility of the middle aged.

11:58 I have no idea where I am but it is very flat. I can see the sea and a series of dykes. From here I cannot see if anybody has any fingers in any of them.

12:06 Krabbendijke

14:22 I am back on the train again. I came a long way to spend only an hour in a garden. But my goodness, what an hour and what a garden. I am a bit cynical in my old age and it takes a lot to knock my socks off. I stand here not just sock less but shoe and trouser less with admiration.

17:01 It is worth looking out of the window as you draw into Brussels Central station. There is a street of small shops but instead of being haberdashers or greengrocers or ironmongers each shop window contains a scantily clad young lady pouting suggestively. It is possible, I suppose, that they may just be resting florists or pharmacists enjoying the sunshine but probably not…

18:34 I am back on the Eurostar rumbling from Belgium through France towards the channel (or La Manche if you want to come over all French). It has been quite a long day but I like trains and they are usually productive. I have written the article about the garden I went all that way to see. And things about Raspberries, Eryngiums, Lavender, What to do in October, a devious plan and, of course, this long a slightly dreary travelogue.

So as some compensation to those who he read this far here is the latest Three Men Episode.

I have hardly any pictures as I have lost my camera -again – so you will have to wait until September to see proper pictures of the garden. Very strangely I am off to Europe again tomorrow when I am going to look at another garden this time in Luxembourg.

Since that travelling Wednesday I have spent most of this weekend at Wisley giving lectures and wandering round the gardens doing guided walks: very jolly in spite of the presence of a couple of rough types (this one and this one) on Saturday.. One member of the audience interrupted me to complain loudly that I was swearing at her when I employed the adjective ‘bloody’ when describing the many foibles and failures of a Forsythia. It was quite disconcerting and my plans to use the words buggerypoo and shitswallop later in the presentation had to be quickly shelved.

The picture is of part of James Hitchmough’s meadow by the glasshouse at Wisley. I am listening to Wayfaring Stranger by Blanche.

While sending flowers to a friend last week I noticed that one of the available packages was called the Seduction Special. For £65.00 it contained some rather nasty looking chocolates, a few roses and a balloon. And a Teddy Bear. This reminded me of something that has confused me for a while: Why on earth is a teddy bear seductive? I can think of any number of things likely to slightly increase your chances but I am not sure if a teddy bear gives you many points. I see that winning Teddy Bears at funfairs by shooting ducks or ringing bells has a point as it it the closest many of us get to hunting and gathering: I am sure that those people one sees leaving fun fairs carrying lime green gonks are guaranteed a long evening. But to just buy a small teddy bear as an aide de seduction? I am probably wrong and missed a lot of chances by not having a cutely pouting bunny in my back pocket at all times.

In my last Blog I forgot to share a small anniversary with you. Well, actually, I did not forget but I did look at the length of that post and decided that it would be inhuman not to stop. It is five years since this blog began. I cannot remember why I started but I am not sure how I would manage without it. In the beginning, actually for many, many months. I wrote stuff and absolutely nobody noticed. (Sniff). Sadly I cannot remember who was the first person to comment on my blog as all the comments got lost in some vast crash in about 2007. Still the archive is here if you have lots of time on your hands, if I might pluck three random entries from the first month for you to taste. There was then an extended hiatus until May, I cannot remember why: oddly there were no complaints.

Rather Alarmingly The Goose Deflated (in which I plaintively ask if the post was too long: nobody answered so you brought future lengthy drivellings on your own heads).

Ping Went The Bra strap Of The Apocalypse (which is very dull and about plants. The promise of the title is not fulfilled.

He Swiftly Discovered That Fireworks Make Poor Air Fresheners (which quotes strange prose from Spam emails and mentions conifers)

I have been to Cumbria to write up a fine garden for Gardens Illustrated. I have not been there for ages: it is a very pretty part of the country especially with the sun shining. I decided, instead of staying up there overnight, to go up and down in a day and treat myself to a First Class ticket (not too awful if bought far enough in advance). People kept giving me food and cups of coffee, which was nice (i) although the constant rattling of china mugs and teaspoons was quite annoying at first. There were a number of important businessmen discussing commerce. I could just see, through the gap in the seats the laptop screen of the man in front.(ii) He was carrying out an intermittent and serious conversation with his colleague opposite: it may be about oil but could just as easily be about jam, I could not quite hear and it is non specific (it was probably more likely to be oil as nobody mentioned guavas (iii) or even tayberries). You would expect the laptop to be full of important figures and vital spreadsheets. It was not, he was playing a football game: the teams were, I believe, Norwich and Manchester United. I think they were 1-1 at the time. Offpeak, the carriage seemed to be full of pensioners. There must be deal going, cheap First Class tickets with Senior Citizen Railcards: personally I cannot wait.

There has been other stuff of note but that can wait: short and snappy should be our watchword. Except it never really is. At least not around here. This is not really a very strong and silent blog: if you want that you will have to go and hang out over at Cleve’s Blog as he never says much: just smoulders suggestively. The man is irresistible on so many counts.

I am listening to The Dark End of the Street sung by James Carr.

The picture is of Eryngium bourgattii: not a plant I like very much because of the variegated leaf but the flower is very steely and dramatic: and vicious if you press too much flesh in its direction.

1. Except the Croissant which was not nice at all. It carried none of the flaky butteriness we expect from the genre: instead it was more like a moulded extrusion made from india rubber. (a)

(a) Sorry I know it is a big unusual to footnote a footnote but India Rubber. Not something you hear about much any more. It suddenly reminded me of the poem of King John’s Christmas by A.A.Milne.I have not read it for ages but King John (‘who was not a good man, he had his little ways.And sometimes no one spoke to him, For days and days and days’) wanted a ‘big red india rubber ball’ for Christmas. It is a charming poem: look it up. I bet Nigel Colborn knows it by heart.

2. I know I shouldn’t be being so nosey but it was only briefly and I was bored, okay. I was writing something and was having a bit of a think. It is allowed.

3. “Oooh Baby, Here I am! Come rub it on my belly like guava jam!”. Barbra Streisand. Bit weird but might be fun. Maybe if I take her a Teddy Bear…..

This is a bit of a novelty – for the first time I am writing this outside my office.

Instead I am on a small but perfectly appointed train heading from Crewe to Bangor. I am heading off to go and see Bleddyn and Sue Wynn Jones at Crug Farm Plants which is I believe squished between Snowdon and the Menai Straits. An area of the country about which I know nothing – all I know about the Menai Straits is that the name can be substituted for Malay States in the Noel Coward song. As in “In the Menai Straits they wear hats like plates that the Englishmen will not wear…”.

Have just bought a cup of coffee from the most entertaining buffet attendant I have ever come across.

09:55 – Sheep, sea a rather wonderful sea wall built from boulders, a derelict ferry. Rather annoyingly I am sitting on the inland side of the train so cannot photograph these delights for you.

10:04 – Lots of caravans in Prestatyn. Sun has come out and the grass looks extraordinarily green.

10:07 – Rhyl. The Welsh for Lift is “Lifft”

10:17 – Colwyn Bay has a very manky looking pier that was obviously once absolutely teeming with boatered holidaymakers and children bowling hoops. Sadly no longer: without the fuss in Welsh is “dim ffwdan”. The sun has gone in and it looks very dreary. This is Llandudno Junction.

10:27 – There are a lot of stations on this line – Conwy now. I think that there was a castle here that was recaptured from Owain Glyn Dwr by Henry V when Prince of Wales.

10:34 – Penmaenawer (I think) where the trackside bowling green is sponsored by a company called The Butcher (who sell meat).

10:38 – Llanfairfechan has Petatsites growing on the platform.

10:46 – Bangor. Journey’s end. Got a lift to the nursery with a Dutch taxi driver. It is raining. Spent a very interesting day talking plants and planthunting. They are an extraordinary couple who spend three months each year striding up mountains, through valleys and across swollen rivers searching for undiscovered plants and seeds. Their plant list is phenomenal – most of the things I either have not heard of before. Delicious lunch as well.

16:42 – back on my train again but this time in the encroaching blackness so cannot report much on the passing stations. Am trying to make sense of my notes which I need to translate into sparkling prose for SAGA Magazine. I am listening to Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo by the Rolling Stones. The picture is of a Welsh Hill from the train.

We have an unwelcome addendum….

22:43 – this train, due to arrive at 19:45 has just spent the last two and a half hours stranded outside Rugby station. Something happened to the electric line ahead and as a result we have been sitting there without light – except for those glow sticks that people wave a concerts (instead of holding up cigarette lighters). I had forgotten how extraordinarily boring it is to be bored. There was a smattering of blitz spirit among the passengers with some chattering but no communal singing – that needed another couple of hours delay.

22:51 – Virgin trains is giving out free tea for the next 30 minutes (on top of the free flapjack that has already been distributed).

23:15 – Journey’s End. Sixteen and half hours later.

Thank goodness I didn’t drive and let the train take all that strain.