Digging out the tweed and clipboards: Becoming part of the National Gardens Scheme

Apologies for being a bad blogger! The weeks have gone by and I have filled my month of being a tennis widow with Steven going off to be an umpire at Wimbledon with everything except blogging. Artistically I’ve been producing a few different oil paintings that I’m happy with, I have been experimenting with hypertufa sculpture, trying to be a good beekeeper and of course gardening. I plan on a few shorter posts to follow if I’m brave enough to share my paintings.....

Object trouve

However the big thing is that I have volunteered to get more involved in the National Gardens Scheme itself...yes the time has come, and I hope to become an area organiser. These are the people of the NGS that people think of, the stern faced, tweed wearing people with clipboards...... I will be doing all I can to reinforce this stereotype (sadly it isn’t true of the people I have met)

So an exciting beginning, and last week I went off to meet Penny, the current chair and London organiser who amazingly used to cover all of London by herself! It was very exciting to meet her properly and see her garden...after all you expect big things of organisers gardens, and it didn’t disappoint....Clearly she is also a good egg as she keeps bees, and also has chickens and a garden that could (probably has been) featured in many magazines.  See it for yourself as it opens this weekend (Cobham)

There is a lot to live up to, and I am looking forward to this new volunteering as I do love the NGS and am very happy to support it. In terms of the role its self it is also mainly about supporting people from ‘my territory’ who are on the scheme and find new gardens to encourage them to open. I also think it will fit in well with what I do as I already like visiting gardens, and love the characters that you meet along the way.  I also hope to use this blog to preview new gardens and tell of adventures I am having along the way.  Hurrah!