The anticipation was at fever pitch ahead of The One Show announcement… no, not Eurovision but on Britain’s blooming with my Flower of England.
And in this one we have skin in the game with My Green-Fingered One and her North Berwick in Bloom team in the Britain in Bloom contest.
It is NB’s good fortune that they have someone on their team who brings the English country garden with her.
My love grows where my Sadie goes
My English Rose has got her hands dirty wherever I’ve taken her, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Co. Wicklow.
Where I treated her to a busman’s holiday at one of her favourite places, Powerscourt Hotel.
Tulips from Amsterdam
And when we’re away too with tulips from Amsterdam from the Tulip Museum planted for the autumn and ready to spring next year.
We all have our own indulgences on our travels and you’ll know well I like to go where the locals ‘play and pray’.
Italia’s green and pleasant land
While My Green-Fingered One loves to dig out a gardens which meant the Villa Borghese in Rome and Villa d’Este, Tivoli.
Now I’ve oft been somewhere and thought my wee petal might enjoy the charms of a maze.
Such as the one Napoleon used to play in the Villa Pisani near Padova
The Parco Fauna Orobica in Bergamo, the lungs for the northern Italian city at the time of Covid.
And Padova is of course itself famed for its grounds, the world’s oldest academical botanical gardens, dating back to 1545.
Where the thing to do is to live it up with a sit down tux meal with full orchestra.
Bloomin’ Barbados
Or more recently in the St Nicholas Abbey grounds in Barbados.
Where another of her passions can be indulged… there’s a steam train line there too.
And on the sea
Of course it’s not just on land that you’ll see great gardens… there’s the Eden project on Celebrity Edge too off Florida.
And Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas in Barcelona.
Although it’s sometimes best not to show her everything.
For fear that she’ll not let me away on my own again.
Now the judges only agreed with me, and North Berwick won Best Coastal award.
But I could have told them all about my Flower of England.
She’s Britain’s blooming marvel.
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