Last week was our 25th wedding anniversary, and Julie and I went to Birmingham! I know, not the most romantic of places, but we have already decided to go to Turkey as a family this year, so couldn't do much else. Anyway, on the way up through the Chilterns we went to Bourton on the Water. I had found this place because it has a small motor museum (the home of Brum, a TV cartoon car). When we got there I realised it was so nice that we decided to look round instead of going in the museum.
It's a lovely place, weather was a bit grey, but we had lunch outside ("waiter" brought our bill to pay before the food, maybe they get lot's of people legging it!). We looked around for three or four hours, then went on to the Royal Enfield importers a few miles away, which was a waste of time!
Next destination was the overnight stop, I forgot to put the correct "house" number into the satnav, and we ended up going the wrong way through a very Asian part of Birmingham. Once corrected we got there, and we were a couple of miles from the NEC, out target for the next day.
Our "accommodation" was a Innkeepers Lodge, I was a bit worried by the outside, room was OK, dinner was limited to roast with different meats. Not exactly romantic! (NOTE TO SELF. Next year for Julie's 50th do something just for us that is romantic, finances permitting!). Wednesday morning we set off for the NEC, and the Gardeners World Live Show.
We arrived at 10.30 ish after walking 20 minutes from the car park, and started to walk round, outside gardens first, because it was threatening to rain, although it was quite hot. First thing we bought was a collapsible plant trolley/box thing. Then we saw TV presenter Joe Swift, doing a piece for Gardeners World this coming Friday. Looked around the gardens, saw Toby Buckland, then Monty Don. Went into the RHS tent, it was huge, packed with plants. Did a quarter of this then went over to the main NEC building (take it from me, this show is huge!).
Had lunch (bought from Tesco's that morning, saving our money for as many plants as pos), went into the main halls, where we were stopped by a guy from N'power. Ended up changing electricity suppliers! Looked around the main halls, when we went to leave, it was tipping down with rain! Luckily this stopped after a few minutes (although it had been raining for ages by the look of it). Went back into the RHS tent, looked at the remaining 3/4 qtrs, you can imagine by now the plant trolley was getting a bit full!
Julie wanted to look some more so I headed of on my own for 30 minutes, saw Joe Swift again, this gave me the idea of buying his book and getting an autograph. Took ages to wait for him to finish, but I did it! Also saw Carol Klein in the RHS tent and took a pic. Now we were tired (about 5pm by now), but we had seen a water feature thing that had caught our eye, and we decided (bit spur of the moment) to buy it for our garden with the money my mum had given us for our anniversary (thanks mum!). After a bit of negotiation (they would not budge on price) we were the proud owners of a large brass looking metal container and four water plants!
We lugged this lot all the way back to the car and set off home. To cut a long story short, weather was not too good, pouring with rain. Traffic OK, got home in just over two hours non stop, about 7.45pm. Went out to get Dan from Cadet's at nine, other than that just watched telly!
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