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Published: September 29th 2007
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AT THE CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW
Taken in one of the large pavillions full of stalls and displays. Chelsea Flower Show
It's been a long flight, straight through from Canberra to Sydney to Singapore to London, arriving at 7am. So after checking into the hostel, what do I do? Head straight for the Chelsea Flower Show! OK, not the usual thing for a young backpacker - maybe I'm not as young as I think I am? Or maybe everyone else is just missing out.
In fact I'd timed my visit to (just) make it to the flower show. Internationally renowned, it would have seemed a shame to miss it by a few days, given that I rather like gardening - especially when I'm not in the presence of my own miserably drought- and frost-stricken courtyards. Even the weather obliged, providing the only warm sunny day for the next week. Which helped dispel the sense of foreboding I'd felt, earlier in the morning looking down from the plane over Heathrow, seeing row after row of brown brick terrace houses under a grey sky. I wondered - whatever posessed me to come back to London? But the clouds lifted, and wandering around the gardens and flowers in blazing sunshine I felt much better.
The show was quite enlightening, demonstrating
the traditional English garden in its "native environment". No need to fret that these plants were noxious weeds, or terribly wasteful of water. I particularly enjoyed the specialist stall piled high with "exotic" callistemon (bottlebrushes), which were the only ones to be seen in the whole show. I might add they looked remarkably green and bushy, like they were on steroids or something - water does that, apparently.
Anyway, by early afternoon the jet lag, or sleep deprivation, or unremitting prettiness of it all, saw me exhausted and scoffing Pims on a tiny patch of lawn I wrestled from one of the millions of locals in attendance.
Tower of London
I'd always vaguely wanted to visit the Tower of London but rejected it on account of the ticket price. Whether I was travelling on Australian dollars or surviving on a tiny local salary, it had never taken a high enough priority. But this time, travelling with spending money provided by my final UK tax return - real pounds that I'd hardly even worked for, or so it felt like - I was finally doing all the "tourist stuff".
Remarkably, it seems very few people share my qualms
THE TOWER OF LONDON
Actually this only the "White Tower", which is in the middle of the whole complex. In hindsight it might have helped to start with the displays inside the White Tower, which helped put everything into context once I did eventually go through them. and the place was packed. There were dressed-up actors reinacting everything from a Medievil king's court to a famous peasant revolt, all of which I largely avoided. The Crown Jewels were spectacular, though it was sobering to see the extensive lengths of empty queuing infrastructure - room after room of ropes arranged in rows, with big-screen displays of the Queen's coronation that no-one was needing to watch. If I'd thought there were lots of people, this was a lesson to avoid the place in "busy season" (August, presumably).
All that aside, though, there was everything the history picture books say there should be: beef-eaters, ravens, jewelled crowns, canon and even armour for horses.
Daytrip to Chartwell and Hever Castle
Chartwell, the family home of Winston Churchill from the 1920s, was another place I'd wanted to visit but never got to, while Hever Castle happened to be nearby and connected by a bus. The bus only runs on a Sunday so I ignored the persistent drizzling rain and set off. Turns out it's not a terribly popular bus route and I was the only passenger most of the way, which is a shame because it's a great service. The
driver was very friendly and a local, and he pointed out all the other sites as we went past.
The house at Chartwell was disarmingly domestic in scale and feel, considering the role its owner played in so many momentous world events while living there. The study was easily evocative of a grumpy, cigar-smoking man pacing back and forth through the night, dictating speeches or "A History of the English Speaking People". But if the inside, including the 3-D scale model of floating harbours constructed for D-day, conjured up strikes, wartime and the Iron Curtin (once you looked past the floral chinz), the outside was pure picture-postcard. From the stone paved terrace you looked across flower beds, fruit trees and grassy meadows to a valley and distant, rolling hills. Yet it was in the sky above Kent that people watched the planes buzzing in the Battle of Britain, holding their breath and hoping each dog fight would end in their favour. The contrast of clear blue sky, green fields and scrapping war machines must have been quite disconcerting.
By the time I arrived at Hever Castle the rain had set in and I didn't take any photos of
the fabulous garden that perfectly crossed Roman ruins with English roses. The castle itself was many centuries old, but renovated expertly in the early 20th century. The result was an authentic and impressive, yet also comfortable, castle-home. I gather it's not actually a home anymore, though, due to some sort of fraccas over ownership of the Times and death duties. No doubt if I'd lived through the 60s and 70s I'd have recognised more of the half-told stories behind it all.
In short, if you're ever looking for an excellent Sunday daytrip from London, and have at least 40 pounds to spare for the train, bus, house entry fees etc, I'd highly recommend the Chartwell-Hever option.
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