Of Cabbages & Kings

Oh yes, & cakes of course.

Everyone who IS anyone has already blogged about the trip to Ssssshhhhh, you know where. Sorry dear reader but I don’t really care. I thought I should trail my blog along several days after the event & reveal my experience & thoughts on the much hyped & discussed bloggers & tweeters trip last week to H***g****, the country pad of HRH the Prince of Wales .

Firstly the cabbages; well they were meant to be cabbages but many  think they looked rather lettuce like… or even green roses. What did? The decorations on top of the little cakes made to celebrate this great event. Peculiarly I seem to have become known for making cakes; a heavy weight of responsibility to bear for such a naturally lazy trollop. I had just decided that I could manage enough cakes for a group event when certain shy & retiring person started putting in orders on Twitter for a personalised cake. Bloody cheek. Despite this on-line bullying I faltered only briefly &  cakes were made & decorated with cabbages in recognition of a conversation on Twitter about how cakes are essential for happy garden viewing. A personalised version was produced at the last minute – hence the rather wobbly writing (or perhaps it was the several medicinal G&Ts)

I must also mention the wonderful chauffeuring of the inestimable Rob Stacewicz. As a fellow SW Londoner what else could we do but travel to Tetbury together & I was not turning down a offer to be driven. It was an uneventful journey despite a loop playing of Duran Duran including a sing-along ‘My name is Rio & I perch upon your hand’, poor jokes, coded messages as the car came to an unscheduled halt………

Anyway, the garden. Sadly, but I suppose understandably there were no photos allowed so no illustrations. Much chatter went on during the guided tour but we were able to see a garden of many different parts, some of which worked & some of which didn’t & which did not really fit together as a coherent whole. There was also no real sense of the garden fitting into the landscape or views which took in much of the outside; it was all very inward looking other than perhaps at the front of the house. Could that partly be a result of the landscape itself or a future king needing to feel protected & safe?  I quite liked some of the quirkiness such as the use of stone carvings in a stone wall, but in places it became a little over quirky.  

Others have written much more eloquently about the day here, here, here & here. I enjoyed it enormously; meeting lots of lovely & interesting people & seeing the garden was a delight. I look forward to other such trips!