May

Aha: May. The month that flashes ‘Marvelous Buttocks In Small Shorts’ in shiny neon in my mind. For it was 37 years ago this month Kevin Keegan fired up my schoolboy love of the beautiful game*. And in a considerably more recent May, I found my nose inappropriately close to Kylie’s much celebrated bottom. I remember it was May as I had just bought a suit for a friend’s wedding for which I was about to be best man and I found myself in Peter Jones at the top end of Kings Road of all places, looking for blinds.

I was in a relationship that had reached the point where you hoped that a few well chosen soft furnishings might improve matters. For some inexplicable reason, the blinds were (maybe still are) contained in long pigeon holes. Imagine a very deep version of those things some people keep bottles of wine in. To get a good look at the low ones you had to sit on the floor, extract the ones you wanted to look at just enough to see a reasonable amount of the blind, then slide it back. I did this to a few before the need for a cake overtook me. I became aware of a vaguely recognisable voice and then of a pair of very pert buttocks next to my head. It was Kylie. I still had two blinds to examine which was the definition of good fortune**.

Fortune has presented the opportunity to revisit the area each May, in a pleasantly coincidental pilgrimage, to go to the Chelsea Flower Show. I’ll confess, before I first visited, I thought it was tosspottery of the highest order. Having been for a few years now, I think rather differently. This may be due in part to the Pavlovian influence of excellent bacon sandwiches and sparkling wine. It is also a celebration of much that is good in the world of growing things and a good knees up once a year never hurt anyone.

This year I am making myself useful as well as ornamental, making cocktails in Jo Thompson‘s garden on the Monday – something fresh, seasonal and picked from the garden. It will involve the essential ingredients of booze, some berries, something with plenty of zing (probably lemon verbena) and some edible flowers for a splash of colour and flavour.

Chelsea sets a gentle panic going in me as it means summer is a short breath away. And with summer comes the  squeezing in of holiday, visiting and photographing many gardens and allotments for the book I’m doing with Lia, Cottesbrooke and possibly the most energy and time sapping of them, Hampton Court Flower Show. I have a stand there which will take the form of a small forest garden. It will be a small edible jungle, with, among many other things, Japanese sansho pepper to try. It’s a good 9 feet tall (see below) and judging by the pollen it’s tiny flowers are releasing, there’s every chance of peppercorns come July. So far so dull I hear you say. I forgot to say, a small forest garden…in which I will be making cocktails at least in part from the ingredients of that garden. Now I have your attention. I am trying to invent a cocktail that uses the Szechuan pepper picked last winter – it is not the worst task in the world.

I shall certainly make a minty apple mojito or two. I made them in the last series of River Cottage and on the Booze course I ran at River Cottage with Steve Lamb. They are quite fabulous. As many people know, the mojito originates from Cuba but unbeknownst to most, the mojito derives from a drink called Le Draque, invented in honour of Francis Drake. Or Charlie Drake as I accidentally told everyone on the course.

Unfortunately this consititutes only my second most embarrassing moment at River Cottage. The first involved me making someone on a course cry. I’ll save that story for another time.

* I think we all owe Kevin a debt of thanks for helping to keep the accident figures on our roads to a minimum.

** I can confirm their magnificence.