I spent a some of my time sitting around reading copies of either the Victor or the Hornet and eating ice lollies. Two sorts come to mind: the Lord Toffingham (which was banana flavoured with a toffee centre) and the Orange Maid.

This latter was very simple - orange flavoured (I doubt that an actual orange was ever closely involved) ice which stained the lips and made your tongue feel very slightly flayed with the combination of cold and acidity.

The Orange maid was the same colour as this Eschscholzia californica

Or the wind? Or the evil plane tree pollen? I blame a hateful, soul-sapping combination of all three. Whatever - the celebrity count on press day at Chelsea this year was the lowest I can recall.

Usually you’re guaranteed a Ringo or a Rolf (oops, well not him now) and at the very least a Hampshire or a Kendal. Last year we hit an all time high with El Cumberbatch.

This year plenty were slated to turn up for the cameras but did they do a runner? I spotted only two: Bianca Jagger and Joanna Lumley.

Arrived at 7.30am as a pillion passenger on Tim’s motorbike, we were at school together. The ‘Living Legacy Garden’ celebrates 200yrs since the battle of Waterloo. It features architecture from ‘Wellington College’ – our alma mater – a strange omen.

In the floral pavilion I had to see Stella Rankin (Kevock Garden Plants). In 2011 she showed such an unbearable faith in me that, for weird mental reasons, I’ve been unable to contact her since. Today I put that right. Her stand and plants are simply wonderful too.

Horticulture marries science, art, design and nature yet, and I speak as a former ‘science scholar’, the science bit is least understood and least celebrated in gardening circles.

But a joint RHS/UK Space Agency exhibit, campaigning for school gardening, proves that horticulture is, literally, ‘Rocket Science’!”

- but step inside the Shirley Sherwood gallery to see the paintings by Masumi Yamanaka. She has spent the last five years painting some of Kew’s more famous trees, in numinous watercolours that seem to pulse with life.

They’ll send you dashing outside to compare the originals - her noble chestnut oak now just breaking into leaf…the stone pine storm-ravaged since she captured it. Suddenly you’re more alive to the drama of the emerging leaves - frilly green ruffles, stained glass copper beech or curious oak leaves like tiny duck’s feet.

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery website.

Uno dos
Uno dos tres quattro” - the ‘Theme from S’Express’ keeps popping up in my head (annoying ear-worm that it is) as I work my last day in the garden before leaving verdant Dorset and heading to the big smoke.

The ‘Chelsea Flower Show’ is luring me, Siren-like, into it’s intoxicating embrace.

I’m at my busiest here, spring has gathered up her skirts and is rushing headlong into summer, but I’ve got to abandon the coldframes, rapidly emerging veg, burgeoning borders and my dog ‘Scudder’, for the horticultural phantasmagoria that I both lovve and loathe in equal measure………