The great success of the second annual New England Garden Festival has come and gone. The open gardens were simply sublime, some completely unforgettable, and the festival at the racecourse attracted a fantastic and rewarding record attendance. For me it was the biggest festival Armidale has ever seen.
However, the great major highlight for me was that my sister and 3 other dear friends from Moree, came to town for three nights to attend the festival weekend. I was their tour guide, recommending their accommodation and booking 3 nights of different restaurants, each showcasing the quality and diversity of great cuisine choices available in Armidale. They all loved the superb food and exemplary service.
In addition, I had also organized the itinerary and timetable for visiting the best gardens and the festival itself for morning breakfasts and lunches and to view the hundreds of stalls for the next 2 days. As in my career in business and ensuring the highest optimum customer satisfaction at all levels, I thought my carefully constructed plans were bullet proof, every detail had been examined and catered for, every contingency covered. Yep, nothing could ever go wrong.
I had one other member join the group, a fellow worker from Bunnings, Zee, so our little tribe contained six people. The Saturday was to begin at the racecourse festival site for a brief coffee and breakfast.
But very silly me, I had completely forgotten how girls just love to shop, and shop, and shop, and shop some more, and so very, very, very slowly. They seemed to be born to it. Their pace was slower than a colony of hidden hibernating snails. Every single stall and every single one of their products required their mandatory minute investigation. Their undivided attention was not just focused on the stalls selling plants but those selling the postcards, the tea towels, the lamp shades, the jewelry, the art, and of course the clothes. But these girls were from farming stock, there were no rash or expensive purchases, just a long wily investigation to find little inexpensive gifts for their extended families.
And then again, very silly me, I had forgotten how girls love to talk and talk and talk and talk that little bit more. They would stand together, generally in pairs or as a threesome, totally stationary, and totally oblivious of the bustling surroundings, as if enveloped in their own cone of silence.
It was not a case of catching up with each other, I mean they were all great friends, came from the same town, they had travelled by car for 3 and a half hours and went to dinner together, basically spending 24/7 altogether. There was none of this parading and promenading up and down the long avenues of stalls. It was 5 steps forward to investigate the next stall then another little huddle together again for another 10 minutes of long deep conversation.
Working at the local nursery I am relatively well known in gardening circles. However, ignoring all of my good manners, I completely gave up introducing the girls to anybody I knew who approached me with a big hi, for another guaranteed 10 minutes was further time lost in endless chat chat and talk talk.
So with the girls’ love of talking and shopping, I realized time was ticking away big time and my best laid plans were in deep jeopardy with the high risk of complete failure. I assessed our little group had only seen 7 stalls in an hour and a half. Into the horizons there seemed many hundreds more.
Consequently, I decided I had to adopt the leader role of the top duck, the gander, and they were my little gaggle of ducklings. It was my responsibility to keep them safe, continually gathering them together as a group, gently giddying them up, explaining “c’mon my little treasures we have to move on for we must travel to the open gardens.”
I was continually on high alert, craning my long neck, checking out where they were, more than often I could locate the majority of them before disappearing into the thick and obscuring crowds. Ok now I can see 3, where is the other, ok I can see one where are the other three. Ok now I cannot see a single one of them. Where the bloody buggering bollocks are they? At times I wished they were all connected by a long rope. Finally, somehow, I was able to maneuver and corral all of them to exit the festival and onto the minibus to travel to the gardens.
I know very well, visiting open gardens are a great social event for folks, an occasion to view and appreciate inspirational gardens. It is also a perfect opportunity for a day meeting old friends and just as importantly meeting new ones. But these girls yet again took it to another level.
The ducklings’ pace at the first open garden continued at the same somnambulist snail pace, with their deep conversation huddles continuing big time, even accelerating further. It was if they lived in a time warp, a parallel universe, where time had no meaning or even never existed at all. But this time it was all very fine by me. I love a slow beat to take in all the individual parts and elements which come together to create a whole complete garden. That is, to analyze the use of plants, the colour palette of flowers, foliage and the soft and hard landscaping used. Then if a garden is truly great, a second round is vital to investigate what you may have missed and to fully appreciate the whole design as one.
However, I quickly determined the girls, my dear ducklings, unintentionally, were going for the world record of time spent attending an open garden ever recorded. At the first garden we were approaching two hours with no sight of their visit ever finishing.
Once again, my top duck duties were called upon for the days’ timetable was yet again very threatened. Thus, a continual collection together of my ducklings and the curtailing of further long stationary and immersive conversations had to be implemented. Repeatedly I attempted to politely push my ducklings along, “c’mon there is much more to see and much more to do”. At times I realized my efforts were reaping zero results and I just had to resign myself to go with the flow. I mean there is only so much a top duck can do and achieve when dealing with a gaggle of errant ducklings.
So how did we go time wise? Somehow against all odds we visited two great iconic gardens, a return visit to the festival for lunch and then travelled to an open day for the local peony farm and a visit to a country potager garden. It was a long day, but it was stuffed full of fun, beauty and entertainment.
On the Sunday I was pretty well, a little bit exhausted, and more importantly I believed so were the girls. One duckling was down with an ailment, and my Bunnings buddy had had enough. I had only three to manage for the day. I thus decided to postpone any more garden visits and just let the girls leisurely enjoy themselves at the festival site at their own slow pace, to casually roam around all the yet unvisited hundreds of stalls.
This free time was truly needed. It took over 5 hours to complete the viewing of all the festival’s stalls. I could tell the hot sun was having an effect on them, so I capitulated and completely abandoned my timetable and any further garden visits, instead suggesting in the remaining couple of hours, a visit to the New England Regional Art Museum. The gallery was an air-conditioned sanctuary, a perfect and thankful refuge from the festival’s open air sun and heat, the bustling noise of thousands of visitors and the amplified live music. NERAM was dripping with great art and culture. And yes, there were many more tea towels, postcards and a cornucopia of artistic knick knacks to purchase.
Our last meeting was on their third morning with a quick visit to my own garden. It was way from perfect, rather neglected, but the bones were there and great lessons in design were easy to see, learn and appreciate.
For me the great bonus of the weekend was the chance to catch up with girls, for I had not seen them for many years. On this last meeting they showered me with homemade goodies and plants for their many thanks for the weekend, for which I was extremely appreciative.
Many thanks my little ducklings, Sue, Carolyn, Jill and Joy, for it was a truly memorable weekend. Just thank the heavens it is not every weekend.
Regards Ned McDowell.