Quantock Centre members visited the Autumn Show of the Royal Horticultural Society at Malvern where the old and the new competed for attention.
Three broken plastic forks — but at least the shire horses had enduring appeal!
The Site of the Malvern Show covers about a square kilometre so there was room for many trade stands — more than 700. Marvellous, of course, for retail therapy, but our first need was for food.
The vast catering hall provided us with a hot meal, eaten with fragile black plastic cutlery. We each managed to break three forks.
Our sights were then set on things horticultural; and we visited the Good Life Pavilion where we saw every aspect of “do-it-yourself” food production. Raised trays as vegetable beds appealed to me.
On the way to the RHS displays we stopped to watch two shire horses pulling old implements for turning and gathering up hay. What gentle giants they are!
The RHS flower show in the hangar-like Wye Hall had dazzling displays of flowers, the rather gloomy interior enhancing their impact. I particularly recall the gladioli and gentians. There wasn't time to dally over the “floral art”, but I was intrigued by 120cm-square displays on the floor, to be looked at from above. Frivolously, I was reminded of the wire quadrats that we used to throw haphazardly on the ground in ecology work to count the flora and fauna found within them.
Also in Wye Hall was an exhibition by local craft workers. This impressed me more than anything else I saw. There was some really beautiful work. With more time, I am sure I would have bought something.
At the end of the day, I would have welcomed a lie-down on one of the adjustable beds on display!
Ruth Adams