Painshill Park

Philippa and I are at Painshill Park in Surrey for the recording of an interview for the BBC’s coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show. The BBC need to prepare in advance pieces about each of the show gardens for their “red button” facility and for their website. For this we have to pretend that the garden has been built and that we are at the Show standing in our garden. This requires significant feats of imagination, with which we both struggle , so early in the day. 

The interviews are taking place outdoors in an enchanting setting on a sunny morning. There are frequent interruptions because of the noise of children, geese, tractors and sirens. We begin in bright sunshine under clear skies but clouds start to emerge and, for reasons of continuity, we have to stop shooting every time the sun goes in. And so it’s stop start, stop start all morning so that before long our brains turn to mush.   The BBC crew, who are no doubt used to this, are endlessly patient and helpful and see us through it.  But it will need some pretty nifty editing to produce anything worth watching.