Helen Yemm has done wonders for us with her article in the Telegraph about SPANA and gardens and Marrakech. It was first printed on Monday. And now again today. Can’t ask for better PR than that!
But from the comments from passers-by, we were hoping for big things from the BBC website ‘Vote for your favourite Garden’ competition.
Now we hear they’ve abandoned it (for technical reasons) and are going to decide the winner themselves.
Well, there’s a surprise. Touch of the Blue Peters?
Still, it’s lovely and warm, and there are still thousands of people pouring past our little SPANA garden…….
Jeremy Hulme
Thursday, 22 May 2008
CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 2008 - Day 4
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 2008 - Day 3
Don’t know whether I’m actually going to survive this. Last three days, from 6.30 in the morning ‘til eight or nine o’clock at night. But we’re getting some wonderful publicity and a chance to recruit hundreds of new members.
We were even invited to have lunch with The Great and The Good of the RHS – so perhaps they’re not too cross with us after all.
First bit of warm sunshine as well, which makes all the herbs in the garden – thyme, rosemary, lavender and mint - give off great wafts of intoxicating perfume.
Everybody says it reminds them of their holidays!
We can hardly keep up with the demand for our bags and leaflets – lovely coming home this evening watching a stream of SPANA bags heading for the Tube.
Jeremy Hulme
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 2008 - Day 2
Hurrah hurrah.
Breathless runners have just arrived from RHS headquarters - we’ve won a silver medal!!! Not bad for a bunch of amateurs like us! (OK,OK, so we did have a teeny-weeny bit of help from one or two people – Chris O’Donoghue, Helen Yemm and others too numerous to mention). Tee-hee, it’s jolly nice hearing about all the bruised egos in the mega-gardening world who haven’t won anything. We’re feeling rather smug.
It was also great when the Royal Party – out in force – arrived yesterday evening. Of course they all wanted to know why Emma was not there. The Queen also enjoyed the story of her magnificent horses falling madly in love with a humble donkey.
The crowds are just fantastic, thousands and thousands streaming past, all congratulating us and asking about SPANA – the whole point of the exercise after all - and to see thousands of our SPANA bags being carried around is just great.
Jeremy Hulme
Monday, 19 May 2008
CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 2008 - Day 1
Ye Gods, can it only be Monday? Knackered already and it hasn’t started yet.
We spent all last week frantically building, painting and tiling. I must have done two days on my hands and knees laying tiles and then grouting them – without getting any spots of cement or dirt on them. Tiles now OK, knees need replacement.
The plants came on Thursday – including an olive tree we’re hiring just for the week.
I must say it looks pretty good – the fountain from Marrakech despite weighing half a ton made it safely, and is even working – a miracle!
Last night we arrived at Knightsbridge barracks with Emma, our little donkey from our Trustee, Carl Boyd’s farm in Chertsey.
The Blues and Royals had arranged a nice comfy stall for her, but we had reckoned without the hormones in the troop horses. They all fell immediately head over heels in love with her. Silver Stick (the Grand Fromage of the Household Cavalry), and the Commanding Officer both had their huge chargers (17 hands or I’m a Dutchman), stabled just across the corridor. They became completely besotted with Emma, who just played hard to get. These great big softies spent the whole night stomping up and down, yelling and calling out to all and sundry. Nobody got any sleep, except Emma. Or did she? We will never know!
Next morning, she inspected the Queen’s Guard mounting in the Barracks Forecourt, before riding out to Whitehall. Great pictures – especially one with a trooper on a huge black mount who is looking down with horror and amazement at this strange looking thing standing beside him. Of course there were lots of cracks from the boys about Gordon Brown’s defence cuts, and the new cavalry mounts etc etc.
Now it’s Monday afternoon, freezing cold – the judges have been and gone – Clare Balding (very nice, very complementary about SPANA) and the BBC also.
Sadly, it was decided that Emma had not got security clearance, so would have to go, before HRH and the Royal Party arrive.
Jeremy Hulme
Monday, 21 April 2008
Jordan & Syria
Yet look north, across the Syrian border and there are fields of green, orchards and market gardens, before crossing the long sandy coast-line and out over the Mediterranean Sea.
On the ground it is even more striking. There are huge fertile plains around Damascus, along the coast, and in the northern half of the country – we drove past irrigated crops of cotton, tobacco, wheat and barley. Sleek fat Friesian cows graze in long grass beside the road. Bedouin shepherds tend their sheep (the lead sheep is in fact a donkey, who the herd follows wherever he goes).
There is oil and gas, minerals under the soil, and a long coast-line for fishing and tourism. In contrast Jordan has almost nothing – no gas or oil, no coast apart from its port at Aqaba, and so little rain that most of the country is parched desert.
Yet Jordan’s standard of living is about three times higher than Syria.
Investment finance pours into Jordan from the Arab world as well as the west - Jordan’s position as trusted ally of the US has given it a huge economic advantage, but of course at a price. The hated Bush/Blair partnership, makes Jordan a target for Islamic extremists, and the authorities have to be constantly on their guard.
We held a prize-giving for the three hundred animal clubs we have set up in schools all over the country. Princess San’a gave the prizes, Lord Newall, SPANA’s President, and the Minister of Education made speeches, and the children performed songs, dances and plays. Sadly, the British Embassy in Amman was too busy to send a representative.
Meanwhile in Syria, things are not quite the same. We spent a couple of days in the coastal resort of Tartous – ‘Jewel of Western Syria’. Well, not exactly.
The seafront is a five mile stretch of rubble. The city’s sewage system empties directly onto the ‘beaches’. Rusting boats and laid-up tankers sit rotting just offshore. Litter and rubbish clog the open waterways through the town.
Yet at the Education Centre up in the hills above the city, a group of biology teachers listen raptly as Diana gives them new ideas for teaching children. We are struggling to introduce the idea of empathy – difficult in any culture. Yet here, there is an almost overwhelming eagerness to try new concepts and ideas – and a welcome and friendliness to us as outsiders that is truly humbling. My stumbling Arabic is gleefully applauded.
SPANA is probably the only British Charity working in Syria. Sadly, the British Embassy in Damascus were too busy to help in any way.
It’s difficult to pin down, but despite all the obvious problems, there is something very special about Syria and its people.
Jeremy Hulme
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