My husband is not typically a creative gift giver. Like many men, he likes the safety of working off a list provided by the recipient, and loved the efficiency of having something delivered direct from Amazon ... not minding if it’s sans card or gift wrapping. Thus it was quite a shock this year when, for my birthday and our anniversary ... which happen on the same day ... he came through with a customised surprise to make the most romantic gesture seem trivial: a 45-minute private garden consultation by Zoom with Alan Titchmarsh.
American readers may need some context here. Imagine hanging out with Martha Stewart to get home style tips, receiving batting coaching from Albert Pujols, or rap instruction from Lin Manuel-Miranda. Titchmarsh is the UK's favourite gardener, a humble, working-class lad from Yorkshire who went from flower beds to horticultural journalist to TV star. When I moved to the UK in the late '90s he was omnipresent, hosting the annual Chelsea Flower Show coverage, running a wildly-popular garden makeover show called Ground Force and hosting the weekly broadcast (and national institution) of Gardeners' World. Now 71, Titchmarsh has moved solidly into national treasure territory, and is in theory semi-retired though he still hosts a radio show on ClassicFM, writes garden columns, produces the occasional novel, pops up on TV and promotes charitable causes.
It's the combination of charity and ClassicFM that provided the opportunity for my birthday present. He'd donated the consultation to the station's charity auction and my husband spotted his opportunity to procure a gift to make his wife swoon.
My call was far more than just a brush with fame. Titchmarsh's experience is abundant and he delivers it with the skills of a master consultant. He manages to tell you what's wrong without implying an ounce of criticism to your gardening skills. In fact, his praise of my efforts thus far made me bloom with pride at the same time he was able to tell me exactly what I'd done wrong and how to fix it. It was all terribly appropriate, since much of the knowledge I used to design and take care of my garden has come from his broadcasts and columns over the years. He also radiates a genial kindness that marks him out as one of the true good guys in this world, a hunch confirmed by a friend who used to work with him at the BBC.
So what's wrong with my garden? The same thing I've been hired to fix at work. Too many things competing for attention. I need to do more with less. It's ironic that I can see and attack the problem so clearly in my professional life, but didn't spot it in my own herbaceous borders. But, as my new best friend and horticultural coach consoled me, when you truly love plants and don't have a lot of room, you try to pack in everything possible.
This autumn will see me stripping out about a third of my plants and making a few tweaks to create bigger blocks of colour. The same applies to my pond, which already looks better after sending armloads of reeds, water lilies and oxygenating plants to the compost heap. My least successful bed (pictured below) lacks a strong focal point; I'll be digging the whole thing out, investing in the recommended Japanese maple and planting around it. And while there's no rescuing my espaliered apple tree (planted in too shady a spot and now too established to move), the west-facing wall I've ignored until now could support three carefully-chosen fruit trees.
My date with Alan Titchmarsh took place several weeks before my birthday, leaving the day itself for other treats. I went up to London for the first time since the world shut down in March to meet a friend for lunch (in a nice parallel, the same one who used to work with him at the BBC). The experience was a bit surreal, at once both familiar and alien. I long ago lost count of the number of times I’ve gone from Basingstoke to Green Park station, and the Wolseley is one of London’s most comforting, long-running, establishment venues for a business lunch. And yet the trains running 1/3 full, the empty, echoing corridors of Underground stations, the blank advertising spaces and the closed up shops felt like I was walking through the zombie apocalypse. London without foreign tourists is an oddly alien place and, frankly, glorious. But not economically sustainable; at least not as it was at the year’s opening.
The Wolseley, always a favourite with a traditional English crowd, was having no issues. Every table was packed, with a time limit to prepare for the flip to afternoon tea. They might have moved the tables a bit further apart, but one of the advantages of the Wolseley for business meetings has always been the generous space between tables so it was hard to tell. The most obvious signs of these plague times were an airport-security style contraption you had to face off to have your temperature taken before preceding to your table, and the individual portion of hand sanitiser waiting atop the crisp linen napkin.
This is one of the grandest dining rooms in London. A glorious testimony to the madness of boom and bust cycles in the 1920s, it was originally built as a car showroom. The opulent Venetian/Florentine palazzo inspiration is a reminder that motor cars were originally the preserve of the super-rich. The black-and-white marble floors, black marble columns, white vaulted ceilings, shining brass railings and grand chandeliers are properly palatial. Wolseley Motors went bankrupt in five years, however, so Barclays took the building on as its Mayfair branch. The original architect returned to update the decor with Japanese lacquer and other Oriental gewgaws that were high fashion by the late ‘20s. It’s a bizarre but merry combination that works particularly well in the afternoon when the place is functioning as a high class tea room.
Food here is inspired by the grand cafes of Europe, with a menu very similar to that of sister restaurant The Delauney. They’re particularly known for their oyster and shellfish bar and for having breakfast favourites like eggs benedict and kedgeree on the menu 24/7. My friend swears by their chopped salads (hers did look tempting), while I opted for a classic steak tartare. Schnitzel is always on the menu as is a proper baked cheesecake.
One of the reasons the Wolseley has remained so popular with punters since it opened in 2003 is its pricing. The prix-fixe menu is only £19.95 for two courses and £24 for three, and main courses tend to be in the mid £20s. Sure, you can have a blow out with lobster, chateaubriand and champagne, but you can also enjoy grand elegance and feel like you’ve had proper value for your money with most choices. Which is actually far truer to the English establishment who once dominated Mayfair than the Ritz across the street, which has pumped up the gold gilt, escalated prices to the stratosphere and targets cash-splashing conspicuous consumers. Who are rarely English, and seldom old establishment.
Back home, my husband celebrated our anniversary by cooking dinner ... the next night. The breakfast bar in the kitchen where we normally eat might fall short of the Wolseley’s decor and our plating is too generous to be called fine dining, but I think our black and white granite counters are a bit grand and Mr. B’s salmon en croute with a lemon cream sauce wouldn’t be out of place in a grand European cafe.
Yes, he’s a keeper. Even before the Titchmarsh consultation. Maybe I should take him to the Wolseley.
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