36...Press day at Chelsea

Stand ready at last!

After much tweaking we are finally ready for the start of the show. The first day is press day and consequently quiet for us. This does mean though that we get the chance to nip around and see everything fresh and glorious.
There are camermen everywhere and you suddenly see groups forming around various gardens or people. At one point this morning, there was shouting and carrying on in the marquee, and I thought a fight was breaking out. But it was photographers trying to get a pic of Helen Mirren! The noise level was incredible as they were shouting 'to the left' or 'to the right'....blimey, imagine living with that.

Rachel de Thame

Meanwhile there were plenty of other slebs to see who weren't in the middle of a bun fight,

Alan Titchmarsh of course

Joe Swift who is everywhere

The Royal party wandered around in the evening, and we saw the Queen go by. Camilla visited the stand opposite. Of course some of the most interesting people are not necessarily the slebs.

 

This georgeous couple were strolling around all day...and kept on smiling.

And this striking dancer was striking poses in the Bunny Guiness garden.

This jockey looked almost good enough to eat.

What you may not know about Chelsea

Everyone coughs and sneezes because of the enormous amount of pollen from the Plane trees.

Green Paraqeets fly shrieking all around.

The gardens are much smaller and difficult to see than it appears on the telly.

By this morning we had scaffolding keeping our eyes open,and by this evening we needed support tights, but, it's good to finally be here and chatting to people about our work.