13 May - kew & embroidery
Ordinarily I wouldn’t be in Kew Gardens - not having a strong attraction or even interest in plants and flowers. I went in order to meet someone I know who works here. We had some plans to discuss. Later in fact I didn’t make much use of the time her free pass had bought me. I went into the Palm House, which was pretty much as I remembered from my only visit here some 15 years ago. The Palm House was mildly more interesting to me this time around as I have now seen some of these trees in their natural habitat in various tropical countries I have trailed through, but still the names are alien to me.
It’s only on the way out that I picked up a map and realised what else I was missing: secluded garden, Thinking Garden (oh yeah? What does it think?), Japanese Garden etc. Shame they have no golf carts to take you to the furthest corners of the park. More plants and trees, so what, I thought so I didn’t retrace my steps.
Near the exit was a shop and I bought some packets of seeds for my mother as they are easy to send and she remembers coming here with me back then. Then I bought a tiny Lily of The Valley plant because I liked the scent of the giant versions my grandmother had in her garden. This pot will last 48 hours at the most in my flat, I am a notorious death angel for any house plants I buy. I have no access to my grandmother’s garden now because before dying she sold (for a pittance) the property to her evil daughter Anna, my thick-as-shit but money grabbing aunt or ‘shrewd’ as the more polite version has it. Better not go into family history; must be dead boring to anyone but the principal characters though that’s how, er, family sagas novels are born. Not that they appeal to me much.
In the shop I also rubbed on some lavender (?? Old person’s scent?) hand cream lotion on and my gaze settled on some needlepoint kits. The finished cushions you could achieve were displayed next to the kits. They were small and I thought ‘Sweet, I could tackle those, I was good at needlepoint at 10 to13 years old’. The phase ended there and then, much to the chagrin of my mother who liked to frame my various efforts or incorporate them on some runner strip etc.
Then I snapped out of it. Crazy! Needlepoint? What are you thinking woman? You are still wearing up to the minute clothes, bit young for your age perhaps (pale blue corduroy trousers, matching tiny t-shirt, high-lighted hair, mandarina duck knapsack) so what’s with the natural flower fragrances and needlepoint? Then I remembered the call from the GP surgery a few days ago. Shit! It’s started. I’ll be booking tickets for the Chelsea Flower Show next or going to the Proms. Am I already dead? I quickly start exchanging texts with young lover (new one, not the ‘old’ one). So comforting to realise I understand text abbreviations: woz, luv, 2cu etc. Believe me, plenty people my age even hate predictive text. And one day… one day I’ll learn all the games on PS2.
It’s only on the way out that I picked up a map and realised what else I was missing: secluded garden, Thinking Garden (oh yeah? What does it think?), Japanese Garden etc. Shame they have no golf carts to take you to the furthest corners of the park. More plants and trees, so what, I thought so I didn’t retrace my steps.
Near the exit was a shop and I bought some packets of seeds for my mother as they are easy to send and she remembers coming here with me back then. Then I bought a tiny Lily of The Valley plant because I liked the scent of the giant versions my grandmother had in her garden. This pot will last 48 hours at the most in my flat, I am a notorious death angel for any house plants I buy. I have no access to my grandmother’s garden now because before dying she sold (for a pittance) the property to her evil daughter Anna, my thick-as-shit but money grabbing aunt or ‘shrewd’ as the more polite version has it. Better not go into family history; must be dead boring to anyone but the principal characters though that’s how, er, family sagas novels are born. Not that they appeal to me much.
In the shop I also rubbed on some lavender (?? Old person’s scent?) hand cream lotion on and my gaze settled on some needlepoint kits. The finished cushions you could achieve were displayed next to the kits. They were small and I thought ‘Sweet, I could tackle those, I was good at needlepoint at 10 to13 years old’. The phase ended there and then, much to the chagrin of my mother who liked to frame my various efforts or incorporate them on some runner strip etc.
Then I snapped out of it. Crazy! Needlepoint? What are you thinking woman? You are still wearing up to the minute clothes, bit young for your age perhaps (pale blue corduroy trousers, matching tiny t-shirt, high-lighted hair, mandarina duck knapsack) so what’s with the natural flower fragrances and needlepoint? Then I remembered the call from the GP surgery a few days ago. Shit! It’s started. I’ll be booking tickets for the Chelsea Flower Show next or going to the Proms. Am I already dead? I quickly start exchanging texts with young lover (new one, not the ‘old’ one). So comforting to realise I understand text abbreviations: woz, luv, 2cu etc. Believe me, plenty people my age even hate predictive text. And one day… one day I’ll learn all the games on PS2.
posted by Lisa Taylor @ 7:35 AM
1 Comments:
At 4:48 AM,
Anonymous said…
i'm 24 and i hate predictive text. i like cash in the attic, itv mystery dramas and keeping the kitchen spotless however, so i may be in very early pre-menopause.
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