Hello from Hokitika

Rachel and I got up at the crack of dawn to take a stroll around Hokitika yesterday. (When I say the crack of dawn, it was just before 8am; the days are so much shorter in winter down south.) We loved Hokitika. The weather was perfect; sandwiched between snow and sea with blue skies as far as we could see. We checked out all the local galleries, bought bags of fudge from Sweet Alice's fudge kitchen (plus a jar of the most scrumptious apricot and mandarin jam for our toast in the morning), then departed for Shantytown.

Snow, Seagar's & a slight detour

Well our road trip to the West Coast got off to a slow start. Having flown into Christchurch, we spent the night at my aunt and uncle's apple orchard near Swannanoa, then we visited the Oxford Farmers' Market (to stock up on pork pies, Cornish pasties and fresh-baked pretzels), then we stopped in at Jo Seagar's delightful cafe in Oxford for lunch... then we finally hit the road headed for Hokitika. The snow was falling when we headed into Porter's Pass, so then we had to stop and catch a few snowflakes and take a few photos and generally laugh and frolic about like giddy Aucklanders for half an hour. Wish we'd packed a sled!
Then of course, the snow started falling quite heavily. We were forced to stop to put on the car's snow chains, but despite the best efforts of three girls all looking coy and helpless, even the grit spreading guys couldn't get the darn things on our rental car, so we were forced to abandon our plans to drive through Arthur's Pass and backtrack through Oxford to take Lewis Pass instead.
I'm glad for the detour, because it meant we went past Black's Point on the outskirts of Reefton instead. We featured the intrepid gardeners of Black's Point in NZ Gardener a couple of years ago so it was fun to check out the little settlement for ourselves.
Reefton was adorable too. Shame it was also frrrrrrreeezing. (Time for me to toughen up I think!) We finally got into Hokitika at about 7pm, then headed down to Stumpers last night for a hearty meal of lamb shanks and ale. Coasters love their beer, and while we're on the coast, so will we!

Celebrity spotting at the Chelsea Flower Show

The Chelsea Flower Show in London is super famous. And because it’s super famous, it attracts super famous people. Lots of them. So every year, while I'm looking at the gardens, I also like to challenge myself to a little game of 'spot the star'. To be quite honest, I'm not very good at it. I bumped into Ringo Starr a couple of years ago and only knew he was someone famous because of all the paparazzi types with flashbulbs flashing around him. But this afternoon I did a little better than usual. For the first time ever, I needed two hands to tally up my celeb checklist, and in fact I was only one short of hitting double digits:
1. Dame Helen Mirren. I should get bonus points for this one as I can also identify the plants she was posing with (proteas and sunflowers) for the Telegraph
2. Rolf Harris
3. Stephen Fry
4. Bill Nighy (now he's cool, even though he was in the worst film that I've seen all year, The Boat that Rocked)
5. James May from Top Gear (he designed a plasticine garden at the show; I can only imagine what the judges will make of it!)
6. Some girl with a flower on her head that I can only assume is famous because of the number of photographers taking her picture
7. Alan Titchmarsh
8. Philip Schofield
9. And some cheerful lady who definitely looked famous and (after a spot of Googling) I can confirm was Jo Brand

Now, to be fair, I also have to deduct points for not spotting Rod Stewart (who was there with his wife Penny Lancaster) and Joanna Lumley. Although I did see Joanna Lumley last time. And, seeing as this is supposed to be a gardening blog, I'll report on the gardens next!

Cacticity

This is the winning garden from the 2nd International Gardening Contest in Bilbao, Spain. When I read on the map that it was called Cacticity I assumed that the title was a Spanish word like elasticity or plasticity; not that it referred to a little prickly streetscape. So as soon as I saw it, I had one of those "a ha" moments. Designed by Anouk Vogel from Holland, Cacticity consists of 828 single-stemmed cacti of varying heights arranged in an offset grid. Or as the designer described it: "A vegetal city; simple and complex; orthogonal and amorphous; sharp and smooth; light and darkness."
I like the idea of clever conceptual gardens sprouting in public spaces. I don't imagine there's much risk that this one will be attacked by vandals either. I'd like to see them try! (Click on the image to see it enlarged.)

Mayday!

I arrived in Paris on the 1st of May. May Day is a public holiday; the French equivalent of our Labour Day. I didn't see any maypoles but I did see loads of lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) posies. It's traditional on May Day to buy them for friends and family for good luck. There were stalls outside all the metro stations (raising money for the Red Cross) and lots of smaller vendors selling fragrant fresh lily-of-the-valley (adorable) and plastic flowers (not so adorable). Apparently May Day is the only day of the year that street stalls can operate without having to pay a tax to the local authorities. It's like our Daffodil Day but, as is just so darned typical of the French, a whole bunch more sophisticated. I wish I could grow lily-of-the-valley at home but sadly, like paeonies, these bulbous woodland perennials are definitely a southern charm.