cheeky bugger

I keep pinching myself to see if Im dreaming but following the recent Home and Garden Show in Whitehaven, I noticed a new phenomena. Its was that there were no complaints or even acidic comments. Thats the first time in the 16 years Ive been torturing myself to put these events on that no one has disliked it, or put another way, everyone liked it. Ive puzzled over why and the only conclusion I can come to is that people who are genuinely interested in Homes, Gardens and cookery tend to be more happy and accepting. Long may it last.

Those of you who came may have bumped into my old friend Oz Clarke, wine expert and raconteur second to none. In all the years Ive known him, Id never heard him speak so I sneaked into one of his talks and he somehow managed to get from the topic of New Zealand Sauvignon to a woman setting fire to her breasts! He is a superb talker and very entertaining so if as he insists we must, we get him back next year snap up any opportunity to get into his talks.

The whole weekend saw a galaxy of famous faces slain by their new found love for the town as many others before them had been. Charlie Dimmock was perhaps the single most popular new celebrity. To be honest Charlie lights up a room with her charm and wit, the fact that she is also an expert in her field is just a nice bonus. Of course we also had old favourites Sean Wilson and Jean Christophe Novelli. Jean and his chef friend Felice turned up at our house on the thursday night to cook tea and without giveing too many secrets away, it was sublime. Ive never experience a michelin star meal before so to have my first one in the house was special. Just to make the night even better, renowned Gardener Toby Buckland turned up just in time for dessert and 'selfies' with my daughter Brenna. Trust me, if Carlsberg did takeaways they would have looked like thursday night!

The weekend was more than just celebrities however, it was first an foremost our first real attempt at a dedicated retail event and as such it was a huge success. For the first time since we started the events in 1998 we seemed to have cracked the curse of Fridays and drew a massive crowd for our stalls of which there were over 140. The Home and Garden Show was of course planned originally around St Nics Gardens and while the main focus of the event headed to the harbour, we did manage to get enough volunteers to completely weed all the beds and to replant them with a cracking donation of bedding plants from Bloomfield Nursery, Lowca. On that score, by the way, Charlie Dimmock was helping volunteers plant when one cheeky bugger walked past, pulled out a viola and walked off with it in a plastic bag! If she had asked nicely Id have given her two.

Anyway, sorry for the gap in blogs but myself and the wee team have been doing  our swan act trying to keep the wheels on the events in recent weeks but we now have a massive gap or three weeks to write lots of thanks you letters, pay the bills and relax before it all starts again with tall ships.

Time for a cuppa I think.