Blog interest

We're only 40 away from having 1000 hits on the blog! . We've had hits from the USA, Russia, Germany, France and Ireland! Oh, and Cardiff council parks dept ;-)!

Thank you to Cardiff council parks dept

Paid a visit to Wedal Rd parks dept today to drop off a thank you card, chocs and the RHS medal card to Rob Jones and Will Power. Rob made a cracking cup of tea (that was my job onsite!) and it was great to catch up and have a chat. I held it together and didn't blub (thank god!)

I still have to arrange to pick up the paving, seat and noticeboard and have some other stuff to follow up with them re the Llandaff North site. Will keep the blog up to date as promised...

We're on S4C (briefly)!

Just took a look at S4C gardening programme Byw yn yr Ardd which covered the RHS show. Good god, we're on film! Luckily not for long though! (see 1.30 mins and 13.49 mins in. Press 's' for subtitles)

Luckily they didn't critique our garden, because they were so rude about the others! Even the best in show got a slating!

Update

Just a quick update on what's been happening over the past few days.
On Saturday, LNRA held a volunteer event at our Cow and Snuffers garden. Margaret and I went to a stables in the morning to get some manure, but it was so wet it was difficult to put onto the truck and we were sliding down the mountain of muck and I nearly lost my wellies! Good job we had no cameras! At the event itself, we forked in the manure we did manage to get, raked over the soil prior to planting and Margaret cut the grass. We just need to plant up and re-stain the benches now. The event was facilitated by park ranger Gareth Stamp, who commented that as we have a tree on site and the benches will be black, the C&S garden could win a gold medal (refer to the judges comments on a previous post)! Touché! Made me laugh though.

I'm hoping to arrange to pick up our seat, paving etc from the nursery this week.

It's been a weird few days following the intensity of constructing the show garden. I've dreamed about the garden several times and would wake up at 6am thinking 'what have I got to do today?', then realise that it's all over. Going through all my paperwork and accumulated stuff was hard too. I'm a bit sentimental.

I'm just going through a load of photos of the show, and will post here soon.

Collecting sponsorship cheque

Today I met Ashley Drake from our sponsor The Co-operative Cymru Wales, to pick up their cheque for plants. He also brought lots of packs of Co-op wildflower seeds for the Cow and Snuffers garden.

We have a volunteer event this Saturday 28th April 1-3pm. The plan is to dig manure into the new border and put in some plants. However, with all this rain, the ground might be too wet to work.

Breakdown day 2

I struggled to wake up this morning, so stayed in bed until the luxurious time of 7.30am!
Onsite, the marquees etc were still being taken down and another three council staff and John and Colin arrived to start the breakdown while the weather was dry. However, frustratingly they were diverted to other tasks, but I did help put the pavers onto pallets, which are being stored at the nursery before going to Broxron and Moruzzi's yard in Caerphilly. The rest of the breakdown will be fitted around their other tasks, so who knows when it will be finished. Therefore today was my last day on site. I managed to hold it together though.


I received a phone call from my union regional officer reminding me I had two union meetings today (I'm on leave,but what the hell...!), so I ended up going to Swansea in the afternoon for a meeting. A 2 hour meeting was more tiring than doing the show garden and after the recent 'highs', was a rather unwelcome reintroduction back to my day job and all the c**p going on in the NHS!

Before I left though, I called in to see head of the Bute park nursery, Nigel, to give him and his team a thank you card and a box of chocs. I felt a tear well up and once I started, I couldn't stop!

I intend going to Wedal Rd to see Rob when he's free and give him a copy of the RHS medal card, and doubt I'll be able to hold it together then too!

My camera has packed up, so no photos of me blubbing. which is just as well I think!

Breakdown: day 1

No, I haven't had one - I mean the breakdown of the garden!

The weather was awful today, so we didn't go on site, though the other exhibitors did. The weather is supposed to be better tomorrow.

I spent the morning with Alex and Ben washing labels and pots before taking them back to Pugh's who, to my relief, accepted them all back for resale, saving me forking out potentially £1200! We'll be back there soon buying the real pants for the garden using our £450 sponsorship money form The Co-operative Cymru Wales.

We made the Echo today and there are some great photos of the garden on the RHS website!