Tatton triumphs

Carla Carlisle writing her column in Country Life recently said that this summer had been created by Chekhov - I know what she means - rain, rain and more rain. Poor Tatton got a deluge today but smugly I was in the main marquee at the time and was able to while away the downpour feasting my eyes on a whole host of absolutely devine plants and displays.

They have done really well at Tatton to get gardens finished and looking so good after the past two weeks and hopefully from tomorrow visitors will get kinder spells in which to enjoy all the gardens and displays. I could have had a bad case of trench foot from yesterday but once again - smug smug- I took my big boots and kept myself snug and dry. Thank God for wood shavings is all I can say - without which I think I would have disappeared in a cloud of not very nice brown stuff a couple of times. By tomorrow all will be pristine and welcoming - so well done to everyone.

Met up with the delightful James Alexander-Sinclair - what a pleasant and entertaining guy he is - and yes he was wearing the hat! Glad I was able to chat with him because Emma ran off and left me - during the brief periods of sunshine she made a passable impression of the road runner - beep beep - as she flew (literally) all over the site clicking away. Then some really nasty black clouds came over - very Chekov indeed - and we beetled away to the big tent to enjoy the smells of all those wonderful plants.

Thankfully it was a short lived downpour but torrential nevertheless and it certainly made all those journalists who had been sitting outside the press tent enjoying their coffee to disappear in a hurry.

A friend of mine used to look at that kind of black sky and say "We're Doomed" and I was a little concerned at one point we might be - but after the blackness came the most lovely blue sky - can you fathom that?

Absolutely adored the Wallace and Gromit flower bed from Preston City Council especially the sheep hanging basket - cool - and drooled over a slate garden - just imagine what that looked like after the rain - cosmic.

The weather forecast for the rest of the week is kinder so let's hope all goes well.