Garden fest!

BBC team

Monty Don and team celebrate!

    

Show garden

Wheelchair ranks!

June 14th-June 15th, 2017

First time away on my own in years - why not do it on a birthday? It's not a significant one really and my family spoilt me with breakfast in bed after all. And there was a definite garden theme!

I met the lovely team on this garden!

So the convoluted journey began in Letchworth heading down (yes, down) to Euston. And 'nightmare of nightmares' actually having to tube from Finsbury Park to Euston. For a Wobbly Warrior that is hell, as it involves spiral staircase (FP) and four interminable escalators (Euston), to then find myself sitting backward (argh!). I won't be doing much tapping (iPad keyboard) or reading really. Just gazing out of the window, time to dream, plot and plan.

I also have a bit of time in Birmingham to kill, before hopefully connecting with my friend who I could have met at Euston if I hadn't booked my tickets a little bit later than her... 

so to recap over my restful birthday: I actually did very little. I caught up with mum on the phone and a friend I haven't seen in a while, talking about a funeral we have to go to next week. My departed friend was the one who introduced me to living with a disability, ten years before I was diagnosed with mine. Confined to a wheelchair with brittle bones, she lived life to the full, hardly acknowledging the things she fought every day. She drove the fastest car with modifications that she could, because she was not a girl in a wheelchair in her Beamer - something I should bear in mind more. I am not defined by MS!

My friend Jacqui

Look at those Hostas!

Sorry, I drifted off there on my soapbox and look at that, half an hour has gone!

I got Press tickets for Gardeners World on the basis of my blog and I intend to see what is available and appropriate to myself and others in the same boat, but my friend who is coming with me is an OT, so I will be asking her for her opinions on what we see, how it would help people etc., from her point of view. I must ask her if I can quote her (carefully) on the blog.

Burning the plastic, (my birthday present to myself) I also have a new gadget, a new camera. I was going to get used to before I headed out, but life gets in the way! But I am hoping to improve the quality of the images on the blog. 

Thursday 

Wow wow wow! For a plant loving Gardener, today has been equally eye-opening, mind-blowing and novel. I completed over 13,000 steps on both days and experienced so many new things. I love actually talking to people and explaining my new life as a blogger!

Today's show was dedicated to MS and the primary show garden was put on by the MS Society and I was talking to a group who kind of know what challenges MSers face which was so enervating to be the focus of an event like this. 

The NEC is hugely accessible and watching folk leaving with wheelie boxes full of plants made me realize how accessible we have made spending for people who can afford to splash out!

There was also a parked bay of disability chairs which I saw when the NEC was quieter; something I must consider in future, is it actually better to go to things later in the day?

We talked to a really innovative garden tool company dedicated to producing ergonomic tools for the garden which must help so many people with physical disabilities. They had a whole range of different tools with curved handles which I will get my daughter to demonstrate for a future post.

Jacqui demonstrating their movable
stool and hand shovel. I want one!

Hand trowel used to dig my chocolate
cosmos in when I got back from Brum!

My friend Jacqui and I had much fun on this trip, staying overnight near the NEC and having a really nice day wandering around, and watching the huge amount of people getting to the show,  and talking to exhibitors and looking at really beautiful plants, interesting and practical gadgets, and classic and bespoke furniture. I was nearly tempted by a pull along plastic crate but I would have bought plants, and I have stuck to bulbs and seeds! The growers had truly amazing plants for sale and we saw how they managed to stock spares behind the scenes to keep their displays looking abundant. It is obvious that the visitors to the show come expecting to spend their budgets and beyond... I wish I was earning more to make those kind of spends more easy!

I stayed back after Jacqui headed home to sort out a family outing and I happened on the people I had hoped to see earlier in the day: the BBC presenters, who toasting the 50th anniversary of the show, several times, and I was only a few feet away! Sometimes it's worth not being first to leave. 

I had to catch the 19.00 train and I also happened on Joe Swift on the travelator heading back to the train station carrying a box with plants in. Unfortunately the wobbly warrior only managed a strange out of focus shot on her camera phone! But it goes to show how much the presenters love their subject to be buying/getting plant samples from the show ground.

I headed home on a seven o'clock train not expecting to get back before ten... a long day indeed.