Magic Touch

Magic Touch

Loose Ends are so smooth and Magic Touch is one of their smoothest in my opinion.

The Chelsea Flower Show gets going today and when I see the coverage of SW3 on the screen it sends me on a little wander down memory lane.

My paternal Grandfather was a resident at the Royal Chelsea Hospital just off the Kings Road in Chelsea from shortly after his wife, my Nana, died in 1991 until he died in 2001 and although his company, and the heavily subsidized bar, made visiting him a real pleasure there was no doubting that the flower show was a highlight of this year as the grounds of the hospital were transformed for the annual blast of colour.

Some of my best memories are walking around the main tent on the weekend before the show opened watching all the exhibitors frantically getting ready and at the end being able to drive in and take full advantage of the end of show sell off.

In 1997 when I bought my flat it came with a proportionally very large garden and I had plans to turn it into my own little Sissinghurst which you may know has only white flowers. I remember coming away from Chelsea with a huge white pelargonium and some white violas that flowered that whole summer long.

I haven't been back to the Chelsea Flower show since 2000 and you know I really don't want to, the middle bit just doesn't have the same appeal as the beginning and the end.