Squelch, squelch, squelch. To the RHS Chelsea flower show with my friend Sophie, where not even the “giant sponge” of a garden designed by Tom Massey and Je Ahn for WaterAid could soak up the downpour. On the night of our visit, someone had helpfully tipped a pile of wood shavings into the river that was flowing through the outdoor displays, to form a path for those who hadn’t had the foresight to match their floral frocks with waders. But, to no avail. Pretty soon it, too, was under water. The only thing to do was to act out a certain kind of crazed Britishness, a performance involving drinking a large vat of Pimm’s while pretending not to notice your nose is dripping and your lungs are blooming with incipient pneumonia.
In the 20 years since I last visited, Chelsea has changed a lot. It feels more corporate than of old, and rather sanitised as a result: for all its prettiness, I found it hard to connect with the Bridgerton Garden, sponsored by Netflix and inspired by Penelope Featherington, a “wallflower-like character”, from the latest television series.
But some things don’t change: I mean the people. Drying off in the big tent – I swear, steam was rising from both of us – I asked a man in a panama hat about his “slug-resistant” hostas. Could this possibly be true, I wondered, and if so, how was the miracle achieved? (My hostas resemble doilies.) “What would you like for dinner tonight?” barked the man. “Lamb or mutton?” With no more information forthcoming, it was left to us to work out that slugs favour hostas that are tender like lamb, not thick-leaved and chewy, like mutton. I’m not convinced. It may be very unladylike of me, but I think mutton is delicious.
Given the brush-off
While Tate Britain’s new exhibition Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920 would be worth seeing for the Tudor miniatures alone, it does nothing at all for one’s feminist indignation (mine rose like the delphiniums at Chelsea). The name Mary Black, a contemporary of Joshua Reynolds, whose portrait of a physician called Messenger Monsey hangs in the show, was unknown to me before I visited. But from this day forward, I’ll never forget it. Black, we’re told, had hoped to charge Monsey a fee for her work, and there’s no doubting that she made a good fist of his puffy, complacent face and pink velvet frock coat. Monsey, though, had other ideas. He deemed the expectation of any payment at all quite “improper”, and wrote to her cousin describing her as a slut.
Jürgen yearning
In our house, we’re now in a gentle, extended mourning period. Jürgen Klopp, a man my husband admires so much that he wrote a 200-page love letter to him and put it between hard covers, has left Liverpool FC, and we must observe the niceties. Black arm bands are optional, but great care must be taken in the domestic arena at this sensitive time – as I found out when I sent my husband a clip I found on social media of his hero playing a musical box sent by a fan. The tune, delicately picked out on a tiny wind-up mechanism, was the Beatles’ I Feel Fine. But it seems we’re in more of a Ticket to Ride mood here: smiling and grateful on the outside, but tender and melancholy within.
Birthday wish list
Guess whose birthday falls on 4 July… I’d like some bubble bath, a large box of Milk Tray, and a new government, please.
• Rachel Cooke is an Observer columnist
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
