Friday the 13th...

Eeek! Friday the 13th! A day to be approached with trepidation. Will the curse of the 13th rear it's ugly head today? Luckily not. Mum and Dad had tickets to go to the BBC Gardeners World Show at the NEC in Birmingham this year. It's something they do every year so we were keen that Mum not miss it. Sis and I decided to make a day of it with her. Bro had to return to work unfortunately. I've got that hurdle out of the way already but my Friday students have finished their course and so I was free today. We set off bright and early, up the motorway to the NEC in Birmingham and headed into the show. This was my first year, so I was all excited at what was ahead. Mum and Sis are old hands so they had the trolley box and everything! There were show gardens, plant displays, stalls for buying plants and garden stuff, all sorts of things for the keen horticulturalists.

I loved that many of the show gardens had themes....

This garden was a kind of a recycled greenhouse/room; Toby Bucklands ethical garden - any British readers may see a resemblance to the Playaway round window :-) I don't think that was deliberate though. I loved that the room was an indoor outdoor room; a greenhouse cum summerhouse...

This rock and waterfall garden by Jack Bartholemew was also very cool. All the materials were found or recycled, like driftwood.

One of the highlights was the Prince Caspian garden completed with mystical archway, mossy banks, foxgloves and ferny nooks and crannies.

And statue of Aslan

There was also an African themed garden, complete with elephant..

hippo and giraffe. Unfortunately the weather wasn't at all African; grey skies and strong breezes were the order of the day..

A painted country garden, the photo doesn't give justice to the lovely cottage flowers in this garden. This came across as both English and Mediterranean.

There was also a desert garden with cacti, sand and Harley Davidson...

As well as the outdoor gardens and stalls, there were inside marquees with Royal Horticultural Society stands, lots of plants on display and for sale, garden accessories; everything you can imagine for the keen gardener. I loved these carnivorous plant displays....

pitcher plants...

As well as the modern decorative displays, like these vent, plant and vegetable displays in one of the halls.

I bought a black poppy, a purple spiky primula, an echinacea and another plant which I can't quite remember the name of...but I can check in the morning. I also invested in a wind dancer and a copper twirler to hang in the trees. There was so much else at the show that I didn't show photos of, I'm too tired to remember alot of it right now, but we had a good day, with only a few tears. We saw Onslow from the TV show 'Keeping Up Appearances'; he seems to have a horticultural business on the side.

On the crafting front, I've been spending alot of time with Mum, so although I've perhaps done a little more on my BPT hoodie, I haven't done that much else. I have been listening to alot of Anne McCaffrey audio books on my MP3 player though. I feel like I've lost my crafty mojo at the moment but I've agreed to organise a Craftster swap, so hopefully that'll get me going again!