Writing for Fun
July 2015
Deception - Jenni Bowers
Given title DECEPTION – the Oxford English Dictionary version?
The act or an instance of deceiving: the process of being deceived. A thing that deceives, a trick or sham –
Or Deceptive – apt to deceive, easily mistaken for something else, or as having a different quality.
Well, at last we went to the Chelsea Flower Show, another one off my bucket list. I'd been watching the BBC each evening and marvelling at the show gardens, the work involved and the amount of stone, plants etc being used to create such delights.
On Saturday, the sell-off day we boarded the coach, which meant no stress and delivery at the gates of the Royal Chelsea Hospital in London.
With thousands of like-minded gardening types we entered the gates to be greeted by a huge Dragon with horses in various poses all made from driftwood – camera at the ready I tried to capture the magnificence of this display then wandered into the great pavilion and wow, where to turn first?
The smell and colour assailed my senses but I decided to 'do' the outside stands first then go into the middle. Lupins, fuchsias, bonsai, potatoes, orchids, tulips, roses etc, all magnificently shown off to the admiring crowds. The Thai stand was so wonderful, colours and design done in orchids by the thousand arranged to amaze and make me realise my floristry classes hadn't even scratched the surface of flower design, re-emphasised when I next viewed the exhibits by the junior degree florists – 'what – a degree in floristry?' Well, you should have seen them, Mad Hatters Tea Party was the theme and they excelled with passionate flourish to interpret this title – I must try harder I thought.
Then the other half said, 'Come on – it's stopped raining, let's get outside and see the show gardens and the artisan gardens before the sun disappears.'
So, reluctantly, I followed him outside and we began the tour of Main Avenue – on TV I'd loved the Lakeland fells garden – all granite and wild flowers, but hmmm, we could walk all round it and it looked so small after the deceptively large exhibit we'd seen on the programme during the previous week! Also we found it disappointingly more slate than flowers and people were actually sitting on the lumps of granite placed strategically around the edges – spoiling any photo opportunities.
However, other show gardens looked good especially the Sentebale garden and gave us inspiration. It began to rain again so we headed back inside to find coffee and food – that was quite a quest and next time we'll take our own food as the huge queues and sparse seating made eating comfortably difficult.
Sun shining again it was on to the Fresh garden category and we loved the Breakthrough Breast Cancer offering with the stunning metal sculpture of a woman in the background, the planting drawing the eye to her and making the viewer think, hopefully reminding a few ladies to check their own bodies regularly.
Next we ventured to the Artisan gardens, only a few but so beautiful and this time we'd been deceived again, they seemed larger and took more time to digest and admire, the planting was wonderful especially on the Evaders Garden, with another strange but amazing statue.
A number of these gardens were sponsored by charities and this left us questioning 'charity' – would we want OUR money, sent to help deprived children, breast cancer etc used in this way? But they did publicize the various good causes so maybe there was a point after all.
Re-entering the great pavilion we were accosted by David Ducheny from the Alan Titchmarsh programme, Love Your Garden – he invited me onto the stage to be interviewed about my thoughts on the show and the meaning of flowers to my life. After giggling and feeling a fool I managed a few pertinent replies with the microphone in my face and camera rolling, then we hastened to join the sell-off, purchasing 6 plants and happily resuming our home journey with them safe in the boot of the coach.
A week later I realised deception had played it's part again – for the gardening programme did not feature the famous Jenni Bowers – I'd been edited to the cutting room floor it seems!