Chelsea.

Greetings from London! This morning, very early mind you.....as a cunning plan to beat the crowds, I dolled myself up and put a flower on my head and went to the 100th RHS Chelsea Flower Show:

I may have caught a fleeting glimpse of blue sky out of the hotel window, yet took precautions against the English weather by wearing thick, wooly tights, boots and four layers under my dress.....and a jacket. It was still cold. Later, there was rain and hail. There were lots of incredibly beautiful flowers though:

And topiary:

And.....champagne:

Even though it was just after 8am in the morning, it was still like this is the show gardens:

Yet the displays of garden artistry were very impressive:

Needless to say, I was riddled with gardening angst when I momentarily thought about my own garden back home in Hobart. I took comfort in the anecdote that the bus driver had told me about how his parents had been invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace for their golden wedding anniversary. As keen gardeners they thought that it was all beautiful and very neat.....except for the further reaches, which they accidentally stumbled upon.....which may have been just a little bit messy.

Rx

Flowers.

Spring, of course reminds me that I nurse a rather serious flower fetish:

Although, since I've stopped up most of the holes in my garden beds, I now no longer take the local garden centre's rose catalogue and Botanica's Roses to read in bed during long winter nights. These days, I must admit to having this charming garden book next to my bed:

Sitting on top of Vita Sackville - West's Garden Book and In Your Garden Again inspired by her garden at Sissinghurst in the UK and a selection of Susan Irvine's books about her garden at Forest Hall in Northern Tasmania.  As Katherine Swift so succinctly states, most gardening is done in your head.

Even though my full name may be a herb rather than a flower, it still contains the word 'rose' which is lucky really, as it's my very favourite flower:

And that glorious 'coconut ice' coloured bloom in the front is 'Pierre de Ronsard', which if I had to choose only one rose to grow on a desert island, this would be it. I'm trying to festoon the front of our house with it....hopefully this season it will finally reach the second storey....it already clambers up two posts on the back veranda. It is utterly ravishing. Yet, I'm also rather partial to David Austen, Delbard and most heritage roses as I love a good story or connection.....like 'Souvenir de Malmaison' which was supposedly grown in Josephine's garden. Not in mine though, as when it flowered it treacherously turned out to be something else.

I was shamelessly flower centric when deciding on our daughter's names and each includes a bloom in their name  - Primrose for the eldest and  Camelia for the baby. In the language of flowers.....yes there is such a thing....Primrose means 'first love' and Camellia means 'graciousness'. I also toyed with Marigold and Magnolia....or 'dignity' and 'desire for riches'. Neither quite worked and unfortunately marigold's are a rather unprepossessing looking flower.....although I suppose that you can eat the petals in a salad.

Today, I took a turn around the garden looking for flowers. The camellia's were out:

Yet this was all that was left of the spring bulbs - three different daffodil varieties, muscari and forget -me - not, which, of course, is not a bulb but almost a weed:

I had more luck finding flowers inside. A Designer's Guild cushion:

And in the bedroom, a Coalport vase that belonged to my grandmother:

And a teacup and saucer that I bought at Gowans because of the foxgloves:

My favourite flowery dress is emblazoned with foxgloves:

I wore it to my 40th birthday party in our garden last year, after I spent the best part of a year weeding the waist high twitch out of it.....the garden that is:

Just before my party, my husband took me for a day trip to Melbourne to find 'the dress'. He endured sitting in numerous ladies change rooms around town all day while a friend and I conducted the search. We fortified him with steak frites and chocolate profiteroles, washed down with lashings of red wine at France Soir for lunch. I'm happy to report that his spirits didn't flag once.

This dress is a riot of sprays of flowers and birds:

I bought to wear to the Henley on Thames regatta:

I was a little bit pregnant, so was unable to make the most of the Pimm's Bar. Maybe next time.

Seeing yesterday was Thursday, I was compelled to make my weekly pilgrimage to Gowans Auctions. They were filming the new series of Auction Room with Gordon Brown:

Look how many flowers there were. A reproduction Faberge egg:

Lots of plates:

And this book of 17th century engravings, circa 1976:

Someone else was getting rid of their Princess Diana memorabilia.....only fifteen years since her tragic car accident in the Parisian tunnel which claimed her life:

What a pink larkspur......which represents 'fickleness', in case you don't speak flower.

Rx

Parties.

This morning, early, I drove Felix into the countryside behind Richmond to go to his friends eighth birthday party at Zoodoo Wildlife Park:

You too can go there if you are overcome by the urge to see Bengal tigers and African Lions on a farm half an hour's drive from Hobart. Zoodoo is a particularly depressing 'zoo' - and I use the term loosely, as don't be fooled into thinking it might be remotely like other places calling themselves a zoo eg Western Plains Zoo or Taronga Zoo - this is Zoo Doo.The whole experience is made even worse by the overwhelming home made atmosphere. And if that's not enough, one of the other mothers damned it with scorn '.....they only have instant coffee'! Quelle horreur!

So if I haven't convinced you, don't go to ZooDoo, rather, donate your entrance fee to Save the Tasmanian Devil and go to the village of Richmond instead. At Richmond you can feed lots of ducks (and geese and today there was a rooster) with the backdrop of Australia's oldest bridge:

Richmond is a country village with beautiful Georgian architecture. There is a decent lolly shop if you go with your children:

And a  pub if you don't:

Now, on the subject of parties, I celebrated a milestone birthday in October with a garden party lunch. A particularly gruelling choice of festivity considering when we returned from France in January you couldn't see much garden beyond the weeds. I would look out of the window with a newborn baby and the garden would reflect the chaos of my life.

After repetitive gardening behaviour and lots and lots of hard slog (day after day, week after week and with much thanks to Allister who laughed when I told him I was planning a party in my garden) we managed to achieve this:

It was about 3 weeks too early for the roses so I compensated with pink Chinese lanterns which I strung along the fence and clustered in different shades and sizes under the umbrellas. I had Tamar Valley Roses

in posies of different pinks, which my mum brought down from Launceston, and pink lillies on the long table set for thirty.

I had a glam Collette Dinnigan dress covered in foxgloves and dressed my whole family in pink for the occasion. The children were then disbursed to carefully prearranged playdates and sleepovers around town - I spent months acruing credit. Tobes was delivered back around 6pm when he had a lovely time wandering around smacking all of the ladies on the bottom. 

My friend Mary, who lives up the road and trained as a pastry chef in New York, did the food. She was worded up that she was working to a pink, floral theme that was to be top heavy with dessert inspired by French patisserie:

Mary has just started up her own business Gourmania Food Tours where she leads you on a taste of Hobart. It is a fabulous way to explore the city as Mary knows all of the provedores, pubs and restaurants and all of the produce. If you are interested in food you will love it!

She did an amazing job doing the food for my party and made vichyssoise garnished with herbs and borage flowers picked from my garden,  pissaladiere, lemon tarts with lemons grown on my tree, religious a la rose inspired by Laduree in Paris, chocolate marquise cake, macarons etc etc etc.

However , the best thing about my party was that I shared it with 30 of the nicest people I know. I had friends from school:

old friends who made the effort to travel vast distances:

and friends who live nearby (one of whom came dressed as Errol Flynn who grew up 2 doors down):

And a merry time was had by all - it was well after midnight when we finally turned the lights out. Did I mention that we also had pink drinks........!

R