Friday was Diarmuid day. I had only met Diarmuid Gavin a couple of times before: once many years ago when he was very kind about the garden I did at Chelsea in 1999 and once last month when we were both on a selection committee for the Conceptual Gardens at the Hampton Court Flower Show. (I wrote a long and very entertaining blog entry about that but if got munched when my computer crashed in Barrow-in-Furness and I really couldn’t be bothered to write it again - sorry.)

Diarmuid had resisted all attempts by me to tell him what was going to happen in the theatre so we just winged it. We had an audience with him in the morning session: which began with his announcing to the assembled multitude that it was my birthday and made them all sing. This was a deliberate flanking manoeuvre: my birthday is not until the end of July. His however, was the day before and he had been serenaded (by telephone) over dinner by various

Royal Horticultural Society bigwigs who were having a rather raucous knees up somewhere down the road. Therefore he was, understandably, nervous that I was going to spring mass singing and perhaps a cake (or even the bumps) in front of 30,000 people. Never fear I am a patient fellow and I will get him in the end.

In the afternoon we talked to the designers of Borders without Gardens and the formidable Christine from NAFAS (flower arrangers) came and put Diarmuid through his paces as a flower arranger - he did okay in spite of trashing all the existing arrangements and making a ghastly mess. All very jolly - and relatively dry.

Dinner in the evening with Celestria, Nina (pictured above with Mr G) and Joe Swift. The picture is of an Iris whose name I don’t think I have ever known and I am listening to the Storm is Coming by Ed Harcourt.