Letter from the editor: The Chelsea Flower Show was not my cup of tea

I went, for the first time, to the Chelsea Flower Show this week. Now, my relationship with a garden consists almost exclusively of lying around in it, or paying someone else to do the work in it, so perhaps I’m not the best person to comment on the showpiece event in the gardener’s calendar.

But I have to say that I couldn’t really see what all the fuss is about. It’s basically a trade fair: the gardens themselves occupy a relatively small proportion of the general acreage. Thankfully, I was taken round (away from the teeming crowds) by our very own Victoria Summerley, who knows the name (Latin and English) of every plant in the show and was able to direct my waning attention to what was important and attractive.

There was a “cancer garden” in which desolation gave way to bright flowers in a series of stages - the garden as metaphor - while the British Heart Foundation’s offering had a crimson pergola-like structure to represent ventricles. All very inventive, yet not my cup of tea. Call me a horticultural philistine if you like, but the only garden I could really imagine myself enjoying was the one whose centrepiece was a rather lovely swimming pool.

A week or so ago, I was filmed for a promotional advert, which is soon to be released on the internet. It is to be called “Editor Scissorhands” , but there the similarity between me and Johnny Depp ends. They say that the camera adds a few pounds to one’s physique: well, I’ve just seen the rushes and it’s worse than that. It’s enough to get you down to the gym immediately.

On the subject of weight loss, I encountered the golfer John Daly this week. He is virtually unrecognisable, having lost 10 stone. Or, in his words, shedding the equivalent of a Backstreet Boy.

Meanwhile, my prayers on the ash cloud having been answered, I’m off for a couple of days and I’m leaving you in the capable hands of our executive editor, Stefano. As they say in Skegness: a toute a l’heure!