Remember ‘Two Jags’ Prescott. The Labour Deputy Prime Minister who just happened to have two Jaguars. Both £200,000 top of the range jobs. One for everyday and one for best, I suppose…..
Well I’ve started another blog with my sister Mary. So just call me ‘Two Blogs’. And if you’re interested you can find my blog for best at http://twinseverest.wordpress.com/
I’m not spending a lot of time in my garden at the moment. It’s cold outside, it’s grey outside – and I’ve got the planting plans for the Project 2 Balham garden, ten planting combinations for our Project 1, and a trip to Everest to prepare for…… And only three weeks to fit them all in before I leave for Khatmandu on March 23rd. Aaaaaaaaaargh.
But yesterday morning I took time out to put into action the cunning construction plan I’ve had in mind ever since I visited Pashley Manor last year.
I have a bed by the garden gate which is the first thing you see when you come into my garden. Last year I decided to reinvent it and planted it up with lots of lovely colourful herbaceous goodies. But my beautiful bed was not to be. There was non stop rain, a decorator with his scaffolding – boy, did we chose the worst ever year to get the outside of the house painted.
And last but by no means least there was a small cocker spaniel with very big feet.
This year I’ve got my fingers crossed for the rain to give up and go somewhere else. The house is painted and the scaffolding gone. But the one thing we are left with is the small cocker spaniel. Hence the cunning plan.
If you’ve never been to Pashley Manor I suggest you go. It’s the most beautiful house nestling in rolling hills on the Kent/East Sussex border. The gardens are stunning at any time of year but it’s when the tulips are out that it is particularly spectacular.
So last April I went to see the tulips. And was stunned and amazed.
(And I love the fact that the ducks there are so sophisticated they have their own swimming pool!)
But I was also rather taken with their ideas for low level fencing……
So we’ve had a go at home.
Quick to construct thanks to Stewart (who is the person who does all the hard work in my garden!)
Spaniel proof (we hope).
And rather funky, don’t you think.
Watch this space for summer pictures…….
Now we get down to it. Now we uncover the truth….
The timetable said Practical Horticulture with Amanda. An afternoon session in the Palace gardens.
Go to the Twentieth Century Garden, they told us. It’s a beautiful day. You’ll really enjoy yourselves.
It all seemed so innocent.
But this picture tells a different story.
Remind you of anything……
And the smiles on the faces of our so called tutors…..
They look so friendly, don’t they?
If only you knew….
Yesterday was a very big day for the students of KLC.
Seven weeks into the course and all eighteen of us presented real plans of the real garden we had surveyed two weeks ago to our real client.
Picture the scene…..
It’s a beautiful morning, clear blue sky, roads free of traffic (it’s half term) and as I’m driving to school I’m talking to myself. The first sign of madness? Possibly. But actually what I’m doing is practising my presentation. Over and over…..
Because I’m scared.
Our client ( wife, husband and son) is arriving at the Studio at ten and we have been given a strict five minute each to take it in turns to stand up and present our plans. All eighteen of us – to an audience of the client; each other; our Director of Studies, Annie Guilfoyle; and the Principal of KLC, Jenny Gibbs.
Now I’ve done a fair bit of presenting in my time, (although I haven’t stood up in front of an audience for fifteen years) but I’m still feeling really nervous. Because this is a whole new ballgame. I’ve only just started in the business of garden design. And I’m presenting a little bit of a very new me to complete strangers.
I’m on at number sixteen so I see most of the others present before it’s my turn. It’s a long morning, and I’m counting down the people who go before me and feeling more and more anxious. But everyone does really well. We are all nervous. But there are some great ideas. And it’s fascinating to see how eighteen people come up with different design solutions for the same garden.
It’s a relief to get it over and done with. And without falling over or forgetting what I was supposed to say. But the thing that I’m really thrilled about is how much I’ve learned in such a short space of time. I’ve taken a brief, surveyed a site, and drawn up a plan that could actually work.
This is the plan I presented. Seven weeks ago I would not have believed it was possible that I could produce something like this.
Scary…. But so satisfying….
This blog isn’t just about gardens and garden design. It’s about doing stuff I’ve never done before. So this post is about the trek to Everest Base Camp that my twin sister Mary and I are setting off for on March 23rd. We’re taking part in a massive research project with the Xtreme Everest 2 team of intensive care doctors, nurses and scientists. If you are interested you can find more information at our Just Giving page and on our blog http://twinseverest.wordpress.com/
And if you’re really interested this is an account of the first stage of the research project when we spent a day at The London Clinic in December.
So it begins…..
The research project into hypoxia that we are taking part in is to be conducted in two stages. The first stage consists of a day in London in December; the second stage will be in Nepal over the three-week trek to Base Camp in March. We are to have a number of experiments conducted on us – in London at The London Clinic near Regents Park, then at three laboratories in Nepal: Namche Bazaar (3500m), Everest Base Camp (5300m) and on descent in Kathmandu (1300m).
So in the gloomy darkness of a December morning, Mary and I catch the 7.23 train from Oxted to Victoria, clutching our bags tightly to our chests in the crowded commuter carriage. Because we really don’t want to lose these bags. These bags contain the gym kit we’ve been told to bring with us… but also two litre bottles full of… our pee!
Just pee into this bottle….
The instructions for our sea level day included a request for us to collect our urine for the 24 hours prior to our visit, so that the amount of nitrate we excrete can be measured! These instructions included the order that ‘You must not touch the urine!’ Really? And ‘Guys aim well! Girls, use those origami skills to make a ‘sheewee’ from your plastic bottles.
Origami skills… I have a suspicion that these ‘instructions’ were written by a man!
Sounds simple?
Well let me tell you that it wasn’t.
Peeing into a plastic jug – my Blue Peter skills let me down when it came to fashioning a sheewee from a plastic bottle – which I then used to fill an empty 2 litre water bottle, is easier said than done. Squatting over the loo with said jug strategically placed (the only way to describe a clumsy and awkward manoeuvre) certainly added interest to my day.
So on Tuesday morning here we both are, in a chilly London twinkling with Christmas lights, walking from Regents Park tube station to The London Clinic. Kay Mitchell (Deputy Director in charge of Finance and Administration for the trek) is waiting for us. She’s cheerful and down-to-earth in black trousers and sensible shoes. We’ve been speaking to her regularly in the build up to today so it’s nice to put a face to a name.
There are five of us being tested today, Mary and I are the only twins. Kay takes us into a small room just off reception where we fill in the first of many forms. Then the other three chaps are led off to start the testing while Kay talks to Mary and me about the muscle biopsy we have agreed to undertake (twins only doing this one) and gets us to sign a consent form. I’m kind of wishing we hadn’t agreed to this – I’m kind of thinking it’s maybe going to hurt. But in for a penny in for a pound…
Down to business
Kay takes us to the basement of The London Clinic, to two adjoining rooms crammed full of equipment and machines and computers…. and lots of young men wearing black polo shirts with Extreme Everest 2 and The London Clinic logos.
And so we begin….
First of all our height and weight, then our blood is taken from us in test tubes. Which is pretty much what happens whenever we do the twin projects at St Thomas’s. But then it begins to get bizarre…. and goes on getting more bizarre as the day progresses.
We blow into tubes, we plunge our forearms into warm water, we hold short lengths of thick sponge in our mouths for three minutes, we have plugs shoved up our nostrils to breathe out through, we –
Well it all gets a bit blurred after a while. But when we’ve learnt how to take each other’s blood pressure, heart rate and put a clippy thing on the end of our finger that measures something I can’t remember, which we will have to do to each other every day on the trek… only then do we go up to the cafe for breakfast. And we are starving! No caffeine allowed, so peppermint tea and just enough time to gobble down a Danish pastry before we’re back down for more tests.
More blur. There was an amazing test where they put a probe thing in our mouths, with a camera on the end, and filmed our blood passing through the tiny capillaries in our tongues. It’s an extraordinary experience to see this network of blood vessels, a maze of dark lacework channels with grey dots pulsing steadily through – and know that your are seeing yourself. We also had to get hooked up to a machine and lie on a bed for half an hour without moving or speaking. And without falling asleep! Challenging! What kept me awake was the thought of nodding off, with my chin dissolving into my neck and my mouth lolling open, maybe a bit of snoring…. surrounded by handsome young men. Not what you want. Am I being incredibly shallow? Yes I am!
Bike test dummies
So just before lunch we are asked to get onto two exercise bikes side by side in the far corner of the room. A smiling guy in glasses hooked me up to various machines, heart rate monitors and ECG’s, with sticky bits of plastic stuck all over me, and a blue plastic face mask across my nose and mouth with another tube attached. I then had to cycle at a steady pace while they ramped up the intensity and asked me to indicate the degree of difficulty with breathing and leg tiredness by pointing at a chart (no speaking allowed) – until it became impossible to continue.
You’d think this would be enough, wouldn’t you? But all this took place with a camera thrust into my face. Because by now the BBC had arrived, and were filming us. Just what you want: face masks, wires, breathing through tubes so you sound like Darth Vadar, cycling to exhaustion – all on film!!!!!!
Mary and I were then interviewed by a friendly girl from the BBC. We were tucked in behind a screen in the corner of the room being asked about our motivation, what it’s like to be a twin (the old question twins get asked all the time!), how we feel about going to Everest. It all felt rather unreal.
Mary then had to redo her bike test, poor thing, because they hadn’t ‘ramped’ it up for the tough bit at the end. So I went to the cafe to have some lunch – nearly 3pm by this time and a very busy day. Then back downstairs – Mary just finishing her bike ride. She went for lunch and I got on with the next test, my right hand in a bucket of warm water for fifteen minutes! Then finger pricked and blood taken. All this being filmed, and I chat to the delightful BBC girl while the skin on my hand shrivels up like a soggy flannel.
The muscle man cometh
The last thing for me is the muscle biopsy! It’s about 5pm and a silver haired man in black tie gear has arrived. Turns out he’s the biopsy man. He’s a regular silver fox – all charm and arrogance and charisma. I lie on a bed behind a screen, BBC camera in attendance, while Professor Silver Fox lays out his tools on the bed. Bizarre to be stretched out, camera man behind my right ear, silver fox in an evening shirt pulling on plastic gloves and arranging his ‘knives’ on the bed next to mine.
He banters away easily, all that ‘you’re too young to remember’ stuff. The biopsy taking is uncomfortable but not painful. He’s injected local anaesthetic first so all I can feel is a bit of pulling and pushing. The gratifying thing is that he is most impressed with my ‘top quality muscle and good condition’. Asks me what exercise I do and I tell him about the regular yoga classes. He says he wishes everyone could hear me – that he sees so many patients whose biggest problem is their poor physical condition! Am I smug….? Yes I am!
My leg is bandaged and I’m told to take it easy. Then it’s Mary’s turn, and I’m really glad I went first. It must have been unnerving for her, listening and waiting for me to finish knowing she was on next. I am feeling completely exhausted by now and I sit on the bed in the corner of the bigger room and chat to one of the nice tall brothers who is going on one of the April treks after ours.
So Mary is done and we’re both hanging in rags. It’s past six and we’re hobbling a bit, legs stiff and sore where the biopsy was taken. We plan a taxi to Victoria and say goodbye. It’s strange to think that the next time we see these guys will be on the trek. Rather nice to think of seeing familiar faces in such an unfamiliar setting.
No taxis. We take the tube. All a big blur. I get home and lie in a sorry heap in front of the television. It’s been a mad and wonderful day. I am sooooooo excited!
…. there’s a new kid in town.
And it’s me.
Another skill I’ve picked up recently is graffiti writing. It was for a project for the KLC course where we were asked to come up with a concept for The Chelsea Fringe. This is a garden festival which takes place in London in late May and early June.
My idea was inspired by the John Lennon Wall in Prague, a wall in a secluded square opposite the French embassy, where, after Lennon’s death in 1980, his image appeared along with Beatles lyrics and political messages. Despite repeated coats of whitewash, the secret police never managed to keep it clean for long.
After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 the messages became less political. But visiting tourists began to make their own contributions.
On a visit to Prague in 2011 we went to the wall and I noticed a quote which really leapt out at me.
For those who can’t make out the words it says:
‘So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul. Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.’
When I got home I looked it up and found out that it came from a poem called Comes the Dawn.
I thought of this quotation and the impact it had made on me when we were asked to come up with ideas for The Chelsea Fringe. So my suggestion was for an installation to be utilised in areas across London where green space is limited. The installation would comprise of a vertical patchwork of living plants and flowers – a living wall interspersed with garden related quotations, blank spaces for people to add their own garden inspired thoughts, and receptacles for seed packets so that those inspired to do so could go away and begin to ‘decorate their own souls’.
And for my concept board I learnt how to do graffiti writing.
Thank goodness for Google….
… and watch out Banksy.
This is the week we went live.
On Monday eighteen embryo garden designers were to be found in a garden in Balham. A real garden, belonging to a real house, belonging to a real client. We were there to conduct our first survey. Three teams of three in the morning, crossing over with three teams of three in the afternoon. It was intense.
Each team was allocated a boundary, and our task was to accurately measure everything on that boundary and put it onto a plan. And then the three separate boundaries had to fit together. It was like three different jigsaw pieces, made by three different makers, that all had to join up to create a unified whole.
The next day, back in the studio at Hampton Court, we had to collate all the elements from the previous day, and print 18 copies of an accurate plan for all of us to use as the basis for the individual designs that we are about to embark upon. It was a little bit mad, and a little bit chaotic, as we tried to pull everything together. And all I can say is thank goodness for Annie Guilfoyle, Matthew Childs and Catherine Heatherington.
Annie and Catherine are our tutors, with Matt assisting: border collies to our herd of student sheep. They – like all the tutors at KLC – are practicing garden designers, and boy do they know their stuff. Their commitment to our development is unfailing; their determination to get the best out of us is admirable; their cheerfulness, patience and good humour seem inexhaustible.
I’m sure there are many design schools out there with good tutors. But they can’t be as good as the tutors at KLC….
If you go to Hampton Court…. or should I say when you go to Hampton Court… you have to go and see The Great Vine.
On our first day at KLC we were given a tour of the Palace gardens. And as part of our tour we went to see this venerable plant.
The Great Vine was planted in 1769. That makes it 254 years old…..
The Great Vine has its own glasshouse – and a dedicated expanse of richly fertile looking soil outside the glasshouse where the roots of the vine are fed and watered.
The Great Vine also has its own specially designated carer, a charming lady whose job it is to look after this ancient plant. She took us in to the hallowed glasshouse and told us all about its history. I thought she looked remarkably relaxed. Because if it was my job……
Has she seen The Little Shop of Horrors? How does she sleep at night? If there was ever a plant with attitude this is it.
And even if it doesn’t turn round and look at her like she’s dinner, what happens if it starts looking a bit peaky? This vine is the largest grape-vine in the world. It’s 254 years old.
That’s one hell of a responsibility…..
… remember that thing at school.
It’s half way through double maths. Stuffy classroom, logarithms and algebra, boring teacher droning on –
It feels like hours – no, make that days – maybe even weeks – have been ticking by while you count down the seconds until the end of the lesson. You gaze out of the window. The view outside is as uninspiring as the view inside. Tarmac paths, red brick, classrooms….
Well, it’s a bit different at KLC.
For one thing we never have time to be bored. But if we ever did have a moment to look out of the window…
And in the snow….
This is one view I will never tire of.
… what the sketching is all about.
The tutors at KLC place a lot of emphasis on sketching every week, and keeping up with our sketchbooks. To start with I didn’t really get why it was so important. You might ask…. I certainly did… what sketching has got to do with gardens and plants?
But this course is about design. And design is about seeing. Sketching is a great way of helping us to see. To see how the ordinary and everyday things around us, that we all take for granted, have their own unique and individual form.
I’ve just been to see some great examples of the magic in everyday objects at the Georgio Morandi exhibition at the Estorick Gallery, a short walk from Highbury and Islington tube station. I’d seen a review of this exhibition by Andrew Graham-Dixon in the Saturday papers. If I hadn’t been trying my hand at sketching I would have glanced at it and passed on. But it caught my attention… and I’m so glad it did.
Here form is created out of shadow. The artist achieves infinitely subtle variations of tone with the simplest of cross hatching. Objects and landscapes spring to life out of nothing more and nothing less than black and white, and light and shade. Lines on a page creating poetry.
So I came home and had a go myself.
Ok so it’s not great….But I’m new to this sketching lark….And at least I’m having a go…Which is what this year is all about.
So go and see Georgio and be inspired.
Old Dog. New Tricks 