When my mother asked me
to go to Bloom with her (Ireland’s answer to the Chelsea Flower Show), I
anticipated a small, quiet affair with pensioners, cake and flowers. What hits
me on arrival in the Phoenix Park is something far more extreme. Hoards of
hungry vegephiles. Flower junkies desperate for their next hit of horticulture.
Huge teams of security to deal with the crowds. These gardening types can get
out of hand very easily. Garda motorcycles career past me. The lockdown
experienced during the Queen’s visit pales in comparison. Seemingly, if just
one flower has their security breached it will be a national catastrophe.
My father and I are
entrusted with looking after my eight year old nephew (his grandson) as my
mother and sister in law go off to examine the plants. The nephew says his mum
is “bonkers” about plants and “can’t stop thinking about them”. My mother is
equally obsessed (she spent most of my child benefit on plants when I was growing
up. I forgive her because while I didn’t have any shoes to wear as a kid, at
least I had a nice garden to play in). We wave goodbye as they skip off, nattering
in Latin about Golanthus Nivalis and the like. We head for the coffee tent to
escape the carnage. We eat rocky road and chocolate buns, to the delight of the
nephew. When he asks for another coke, I give it to him on one condition. If
his mother asks what we got up to, he must tell her we went to a lecture by
Gerry Daly, Ireland’s gardening Deus. My dad pipes up. “Gerry Daly? Is he not
dead?” “Why would he be dead?” I say. “Well, he’s not on the telly anymore, is
he?” The nephew practices his line about Gerry and then happily devours his
second coke, his face now smeared from ear to ear with melted chocolate. Pensioners
at the neighbouring table “tut tut” in disapproval, clearly insinuating that we
are the worst caregivers in the world. I decide it might be time to go and look
at some flowers but the suggestion is not received well. My Dad wants to see if
he can sneak another coffee because the waitress guarding the hot drinks
machine has left her post. The nephew tells me he hates flowers even more than
girls. I ask him what his least favourite thing about flowers is. “Looking at
them”. Now I am imagining his mother forcing him to sit in front of a flower
bed for hours on end as she recites their Latin nomenclature. A sort of
horticultural torture system, utilised for crimes against botany perhaps.
We’re late for our
rendezvous with the mother and the sister in law. We stumble out of the coffee
tent, exhausted from our feed. We’re supposed to be having a picnic now. My dad
is desperate for the toilet because he has processed more coffee than Brazil
this morning. The sister in law asks the nephew what we’ve been doing for the
last hour. “We went to a lecture by Tess Daly” he says proudly. “Gerry” I
whisper. “And Gerry. Tess and Gerry Daly” he says, as I vigorously rub the
chocolate face-mask off his head using metholated spirits and a wire brush. How
can children not feel when their faces are covered in food? Does it not feel
uncomfortable? I never understood that.
© Simon Tierney 2012
