The Garden Press Event 2011

It's always good to start the gardening year with a class event - especially after the miserable winter - and yesterday was the Garden Press Event at the RHS Horticultural Halls in London. This is open to all members of the gardening press and a great chance to catch up with a large number of gardening sundry suppliers and nurseries. It's always a goodie - and this year was better than ever - IMHO.

I travelled down to London with Nigel Colborn & Philippa Pearson and like the keenies we are, arrived before the doors officially opened, so had to sneak in the side door - desperate for the loo and a coffee. Luckily, there were bacon butties on offer and I managed to sneak away several Danish pastries to keep me going on the fuel/food front. All very necessary, since I later missed lunch - time just flew and it was too late to eat when I realised what the time was. And, as it turned out, later I downed a couple of glasses of champagne on the Hillier stand, which went straight to my head.

The event was meant to end at 4.30pm, but I was still there at 5.15pm - although it's not that easy talking to people as they dismantle their stand around you. Even getting there early, missing lunch and staying late didn't give me enough time to see everyone I wanted to - in fact, I probably only saw a quarter of the stands.

Someone did ask me whether I thought it would be the last event, because in future we could do virtual shows via webcams. I certainly hope not (even being a virtual kind of guy), since it's the face-to-face interaction that makes all the difference and the only way to winkle out those little gems of information.

But it was great to see who I did, catch up with friends and colleagues and find out loads of gossip. Apologies to the 75% of people I didn't see. I must stop talking so much and get a pair of skates or a skateboard for next year's event!