お誕生日のお祝い旅行の最終日は、２日目と同じく、わたしは予定通り１０時から３時半頃まで Sarah Raven さんのガーデニングコース（この日のテーマは、「切花用のお花の育て方」でした）を受けました。夫は、前日パンクしてしまった車のヘルプ待ちをして係の方と話しをし、係の方が持ってきてくださったタイヤは合わなかったそうで、タイヤを持ってきてつけかえてもらうための手配をしたりで、午前中はほとんど参加出来ず。高い授業料なので残念でしたが、仕方ありません。
On the 4th day of my birthday trip, I attended Sarah Raven’s gardening course again. This time the theme was “How to Grow your own Cut Flowers”. However, my husband was not able to attend much in the morning because he had to wait for the help from the AA for the tyre of our car (the emergency wheel that the help guy brought didn’t fit so they had to find someone else who could come with the right tyre). It was a shame because the course was quite expensive but it was more important to have the car repaired.
ちなみに、何度かガーデニングの講義に夫と出ましたが、参加されている方達の９０％以上が女性です。男性もガーデニングをされる方は大勢いらっしゃると思うのですが、多分、夫婦両方が参加するというのはもったいない、ということなのだろうな、と思います。わたしは自分だけが担当になるのは嫌なので、夫にも参加してもらっています。覚えられることには限りがあるので、一緒に聞く方が心強いというものです。
Incidentally, we’ve had a few of gardening lectures so far this year but found that 90% or more of the attendees are female. I’m sure many guys also do gardening but I’m guessing that most people feel it’s a waste for both of them to attend. In our case, I’d rather for both, I don’t want to have all the responsibilities of gardening myself and we can hopefully remember more things between us.
この日のランチ。前々日もこの日もメインのチョイスは２つでどちらの日も１つはリゾットでした。ベジタリアンのチョイスはリゾットかマッシュルームの何がほとんどですよね、もっと色々作れそうなものですが。
Again, lunch was included and fortunately our car was fixed before lunch so my husband was able to have it with me. On both days (on Tuesday and Thursday), the choices for the main were only 2 and the vegetarian choice for both days was risotto (though they were different risottos). I find it so boring that you often have to have risotto or mushrooms (or both together) when you want to have a vegetarian meal. There are so many other things you can cook!
夫はこの日は鹿肉のラグーのパスタ。割と美味しかったようでしたが、パスタは随分アルデンテでした。
My husband had Venison Ragu with pasta, which he said was quite good although the pasta was very al dente.
わたしは鹿肉は食べられないので、リゾット。この日はアーティチョークのリゾットでした。
I cannot eat venison so I had the risotto – which was with artichoke.
デザートはチョイスなし、この日はカスタードのタルト。
There was no choices for the dessert, it was Custard Tart this day.
会場のディスプレーは前々日と同じでした。講義のあったお部屋には色々な植物の種が置かれていて、別のお部屋に花瓶やフェイクのお花や球根なども買えるようになっていました。
The display at the room for the lecture was the same as on Tuesday. They had lots of plant seeds in the lecture room as well as a separate room full of things like vases, fake flowers, bulbs etc that you could buy.
こちらは、この日のSarahさんの講義中に出てきた植物の種。
These were the seeds mentioned in the course this day.
最後のアーサーさんのフラワーアレンジメントのデモ。前々日とほぼ同じでしたが、少し違う植物（フェイクも含めて）が使われていました。
The flower arrangement demonstration by Arthur this day was nearly the same as the one on Tuesday but there were 2 plants ( 1 fake) that were not used in the earlier display.
１種類、あまり見かけないお花が使われていました、アガパンサスのお花の後で種がついている状態のもの。最近どこかのガーデンでたくさん見かけて面白いなと思って見ていたところでした。
One was something interesting, agapanthus – not the flowers, but the seed heads. Just the other day I saw many of these in a garden somewhere and I found them very interesting looking.
ということで、わたしたちは３時半ごろに終わってすぐに車でホテルを出て、家に向かいました。
It finished around 3:30pm, and we left as soon as it finished and drove back home.
Sarah Raven さんはとても人気のガーデナーさんで、周りの方達もほとんどの方がご存知ですし、こういうコースも結構すぐに満席になってしまいます。お話もお上手ですし、小さなお庭でも参考になることがたくさんあるお話でした。こういう場で聞けば聞くほど、ガーデニングに必要な知識が多過ぎて十分な知識を持つのはなかなか難しいと感じますが、色々な場で少しずつでも知識を増やして行ければと思います。
Sarah Raven is very popular, most people around us know her and these sort of gardening courses run by her get booked up quite quickly. She can engage you by her talk very well, and I feel there were quite a lot of tips that we picked up even for a small garden like ours. The more we hear gardeners talk the more we realise how much knowledge you need to do gardening and it’s not possible for us to get the knowledge we need in a short time. We just have to keep trying to absorb as much as we can from these lectures, You Tubes, books etc.