Freshly Pressed Jeans at the RHS Tatton Show

Today my wife and I went to the RHS Tatton Show and had such a great day.

In the morning I was very nervous about what to wear because I thought it was probably a bit posh - The RHS the Royal Hoitytoity Society perhaps?

But then I put my mind at rest, telling myself that it's about flowers and gardens so there would probably be some rustic gardener types there, so I wouldn't stand out as an oik. But then I overheard my wife telling a friend on the phone that there was some kind of dress code "Freshly Pressed Jeans and Wellies!" so the pressure was back on, and so was the iron.


Eventually I thought I'd do and we set off to crawl through the traffic that was already building up on the way to the show. We drove through the incredible Tatton park with it's magnificent views of rolling green fields, woods and lakes; sheep and deer and arrived at the show.

I was constantly checking out what people was wearing in case I was too scruffy and, although many people were in their English Sunday best, there were enough people dressed similar to me to stop me worrying.

SILVER GUILT
When we got through the gates we found a tent where there were flower design displays, one of the main reasons we'd come was to see flower designy things. There were about ten large display stands and I noticed there were awards on them Gold, Silver - I didn't see any Bronze but we were walking past a display with a 'Silver Gilt' award and I thought maybe Bronze was too distasteful so they used 'Silver Gilt'. I remarked to my wife "What's silver gilt then, worse than silver?" At which point a woman spun round and barked "no it's BETTER than silver, Better." This woman, who was obviously connected to the display, calmed herself and proceeded to tell me that silver gilt was 'very nearly gold' and that it would have been a gold award if only they'd send them the right colour carpet for the stand. I could tell this was very serious business so I duly complemented her on the work and moved on as soon as politely possible.

One of the stalls (Verdure Floral Design) had a very impressive set of designs inspired by the work of famous artists. Pictured above are two of them: The yellow one in the background is inspired by Banksy and the one in the foreground that looks like a close up of Kermit's anus is imspired by Barbara Hepworth.

From a quick trip to the portaloos at which I learned that posh people still piss on the floor and flower people's toilets DO NOT smell of flowers - we moved on for a look round.

NODDY AT THE FAIR
The atomosphere was really good, there was a band playing in a Pavillion with a man doing super speedy trombone playing to the William Tell overture. The announcements coming from the main PA system were done in such a old England, 'Cricket on the village green' kind of voice that it reminded me of a record I had as a child, in which Noddy had a sports day and the announcer commented in a similar voice "and Bigears has dropped the egg in the egg and spoon race..." I love it when sounds and smells transport you back in time like that.

I had a check round for how freshly pressed other people's jeans were.

We had a look round and found...

The German Tourist Board (random).








A lawn lower stall manned by the Jeremy Clarkson's of the gardening world.









A plant called Laurus Nobilis (hee hee - Deedpole purileus)
COFFEE STALL CHAOS
I could smell coffee coming from the stalls and I had to get some while my wife went on to find the British Floristry Association tent.

I joined the queue at a coffee stall. The stall had three window sections each headed with a different sign saying what the stall sold. One to the left said 'SOFT DRINKS' the centre section had 'SANDWICHES AND CAKES' and the one on the right said 'COFFEE AND TEA'.

This is important to describe, because there was chaos at this stall as it was very busy and the polite English clientele had decided between them that there should be three queues, one for each window. I joined the middle queue. After a while a rumour jumped from queue to queue that you had to join the queue with the sign that said what you wanted to buy, and 'how ridiculous' this was and 'what if I want a drink and a sandwich?' exasperated comments went round but nobody spoke up to ask what we should be doing.

I craned my neck to see the front and realised the middle queue, which by now I'd nearly got to the front of, had no cashier at it and then I heard the guy behind the counter say 'there's actually only two queues' (of course he meant 'there's only supposed to be two queues - there was in fact still three).

Word went round again and we split into two queues - I worked out that (as I had suspected) the signs were just general advertisements of what the stall sold and not instructions about where to queue for what goods as the earlier rumour had suggested. This hadn't been realised by some other customers, who were still grumbling and joining one queue while sending their friends to the other queue - to ensure they had all the food and drink types covered.

Luckily this chaos, that on any other day might have quite stressed me out, was delighting and entertaining me, as I watched people trying to fathom out the system and all the while being so polite and gracious to each other.

HELLO MUM I'M AT THE FLOWER SHOW!
Coffee and cakes secured, I went on to find my wife in the very professionally organised marquee run by the British Floristry Association. This housed the "prestigious" Eurofleurs competition, in which young florists from across Europe compete.
There was a big stage with a cat walk coming out of it with a QVC infomercial-style floristry demonstration going on. I was genuinely impressed with the production and presentation skills of the 'anchorman' - who was like Dale Winton and his roving reporter (only roving as far as the other end of the Marquee to report on the eurofleurs entries), who was like a slightly camp Gene Wilder and kept talking about magnificent pionieses (sounds like penis but are flowers).

The TV show cut from the main demonstration on the big stage with the (as yet unused) catwalk, to the roving reporter who was talking us through two countries at a time from the Eurofleurs competition. The camera pictures were being beamed onto giant screens at the sides of the main 'catwalk' stage.
When the demonstrations had finished, bizarrely some scantily-clad dancing girls came out and started prancing around to music (pictured). I couldn't really make the connection with flowers but I suppose it was just entertainment to get people into the tent, or something for the men?

Later, I managed to walk behind some of Europe's up-and-coming florists being interviewed on the camera and give a little wave for the seated crowd's benefit and to embarrass my wife (after all, she had dared me into it, by calling my bluff when I suggested I would go and wave at her on the big screen).

GOLLY FLOWERS
Later we went to see the prize fruit and vegetables. I knew this was taken particularly seriously by gardeners. I learned how to make carrots go even more orange and happened upon what was described as the "Most Meritorious Dish Of Vegetables Judged In The Competition" as we looked at these amazing collies and remarked how white they were, a woman behind us said in a posh voice "yes, they're not Collie Flowers, they're Golly Flowers". I bet she says that every year and really looks forward to it. So rarely do you get to hear a joke that relies on a pun of the word 'Golly' - I love the Tatton Show for this! I would like to have said "Yes and that's not just Maize, it's fucking amaizing" that would have given her a new joke for next year.





LUNCH AT FORTUM & MASON

We had booked to have lunch at Fortnum & Mason which was very good but not without complications. Firstly they tried to say that we were too late for lunch but we argued our way into a late sitting since we had booked and the staff were very good about it. Then at the end of the meal when it was time to pay there was a long queue and the card machines weren't working well. There were lots of people in the queue complaining about long waits, wrong orders and not being able to have the lunch menu they'd booked (as had nearly happened to us).

Having to queue to pay seemed to be a bit of a nolvelty to some of the customers (who must have never been to a Wetherspoons or a Bernie Inn) and some were threatening to leave without paying if they had to wait any longer. I did feel sorry for the staff that were fending off and dealing with the complaints, but I felt a little proud that the English, notorious for not complaining, had found their mettle and were getting stuck in.

Our own problem was having to wait about twenty minutes for the payment to go through. At one point the internet connection was lost and I had to put my PIN in a second time. I made them check that my payment hadn't already gone through. Now we've got home we have found that we have been charged twice. We are now complaining and hopeful of getting a full refund of both payments or a free meal on another occassion. They certainly seemed very responsive to complaints and making amends. It's one of those companies that prize customer service but their systems really let them down today.

It didn't ruin the experience though because we weren't really in a rush. This was typical of the whole day, it was such a good atomosphere that any glitches that might otherwise have been a problem, just looked like an 'experience' to me of what life could be like if we all just freshly pressed our jeans, queued nicely and said Golly just a bit more often.