Coveting Coveys

  ..

At last! At last the Sock has made it on to the list of  recipients of Simian Suter's quails eggs - an honour given to only a chosen few and one which the Sock has been coveting for some time. Simian's covey of quails are all called Anthony.. not a lot of people know that.

The handover took place at the RHS London Halls Autumn show and was witnessed by Lazy Trollop, Mich Wheeler who was doing her Amateur Gardening job thing, a bloke (pictured below) who looks nothing like either Toby Buckland or Rory Bremner (judge for yourselves)

and a lady who clearly didn't approve of the public passing of eggs.

The London shows in the lovely Lindley and Lawrence Halls are invariably full of people with an average age of 109 which makes the Sock feel quite young in comparison. This makes for a gracious and genteel atmosphere, compared with the rowdies you get at places like the Malvern Show.  A lady joined the Sock and Trollop at their coffee table and soon engaged us in an interesting conversation which included the fact that Wisley used to have a 'Members only' opening day and it was a shame they didn't have that now because the place was always full of 'yummy mummies' meeting for lunch!
We became so effusive in our agreement with this point (well the Sock did, the LazyTrollop more reasonably pointed out that Wisley was big enough for everyone) that we were running late for Alys Fowler's talk on 'The Edible Garden'.

Alys' talk was fascinating and not a moment of the hour wasted with the Sock's usual wandering attention.  It was a full room and possibly a difficult audience, many of whom had been around long enough to have their own well tried and tested ideas on growing.  However, the talk was very well received, a testament to Alys' passion, knowledge and infectious enthusiasm.  Unfortunately the Sock is now suffering from 'worm worry' as they are very few and far between in her garden.

The show itself was a bit strange the poetry reading and singing didn't seem to

exist in the same universe as the  displays of large vegetables

and glorious baskets of produce

It did all have a fabulous autumnal feel to it though.

Don't know who these people are but they certainly seem to turn up everywhere!