Doing this course at KLC is very much like trekking to Base Camp.

You’re climbing a very steep hill, you’ve got your eyes fixed on the top, it looks a very long way off, you try to find the best way up, you wonder if you’re going to make it…. Finally, out of breath and ready to drop, you get to the top.

Oh look, it’s not the top after all. There’s a whole other hill to climb…..

We thought the Planting Combinations File was the killer. But our latest project, the Concept Garden Project is showing some teeth. It was set on our first day back after Easter. We’ve been given two weeks to complete it, with the presentation of our plans on the day after the Bank Holiday weekend.

Piece of cake, I thought. (I’d already got my idea, been thinking about it for ages.) My theme is hypoxia, the reason for the Xtreme Everest 2 trek to Base Camp. I knew what I wanted the garden to look like, did a rough sketch in a matter of hours. All I had to do was complete the plan, render it, write a plant list, do a quick measured perspective drawing (which we had learnt how to do with Claire last term), and write the brief. I started straight away and reckoned it should be done in a couple of days. And it was really important that it was done in a couple of days…..

Because I was going to Majorca. In fact I’m there right now….

Graham and I had planned this trip months ago. A few days together at our house in Majorca was just what we would need after his treatment at the London Clinic and my trek in the Himalayas. And it was early in the summer term so hopefully I would be deadline free and just starting out on any projects. So I could take some reading with me. Maybe do a bit of sketching…..

Huh!

My big mistake was coming up with a garden design based on a spiral. Do you have any idea how ******** difficult it is to draw an accurate design based on a spiral? Well I didn’t when I started out. But I do now….

And a perspective drawing when there are no straight lines and the curves go vertically as well as horizontally……

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!

So yesterday saw me at Gatwick Airport with my satchel as hand baggage, completely weighed down with drafting equipment (I’d have packed my drawing board if I could have fitted it in.) And it’s another watch this space moment…..

Will she make it to the top of the hill? Will there be another hill waiting for her when and if she gets there?

Stay tuned…..