The poor weather and some tricky detailing on the staircase we are building at home kept us away from the RHS Flower Show at Tatton. However the time at home was well spent and here at last is the Chelsea garden entry for next year. I have computer modelled it; however I thought it needed something more. The computer doesn’t really do plants justice and they take up so much memory that it gets very frustrating. So I built a scale model (1:25) of the garden. It was originally white but the family voted in favour of adding the necessary textures, taken off the computer model. But how to do plants. I had been relying on the local toy shop to have some train type trees and things that enthusiasts use to create mini landscapes. They didn’t and I was stuck, until I found a box of unused straws. Needs must and on a wet Sunday afternoon I took a sharp knife to the straws and the tips of my fingers…its passable, in a Blue Peter sort of way but was very therapeutic. Of greatest benefit was the time I had to spend thinking about how to cut card and build features. I realised some things need altering and the design has evolved a little. Despite promising the website is still not updated and I don’t think that it will be now until late August. We are off on holiday later this week, absolutely definitely as the expired passport was sorted out by an emergency dash to Liverpool Passport Office where there was a queue of similarly stressed families. I will post some observations on Valencian gardens when I get back.