Withering at Bloom

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