Choir tour! The Postojna Caves, Slovenia

Thursday 12 July was a day for chilling out - literally. It began with a trip to the Postojna Caves, an amazing warren of chambers adorned with stalagmites and stalactites of all shapes, sizes and colours.
Our tour guide, Sara, had warned us that the temperature below ground would be really cold, around 8C, compared to 28C outside.
I've been to limestone caves before, and was inclined to be of the opinion that when you've seen one lot of stalatites, you've seen them all. However, Postojna was very impressive, not least because you were taken into the caves on a little train, which rattled you through tunnels and under overhanging rocks at top speed.
The cave system was enormous - chamber after chamber of different formations. Some looked like tattered flags or pieces of cloth (or prosciutto, said one of the permanently hungry Year 7 boys). Others looked like melted candles, and on some of the ceilings there were "spaghetti" formations, with endless small stalactites hanging from the roof.

We weren't allowed to take pictures, unfortunately, but in the very last chamber, called the Concert Hall, the chamber choir were able to perform, and here they are. They call themselves Vocalicity and they are directed by my daughter. They're very good (though I say so myself!) - they've been working with the a cappella group Voces8 for two years and they sound very professional.
The woman who was conducting the tour of the caves was about to announce that Vocalicity were singing when suddenly someone in the crowd of tourists collapsed. I'm not sure what was wrong, but she seemed all right once they got her outside. Perhaps it was a panic attack, brought on by being underground for so long - and we had walked a long way through the caves before rejoining the train.

When we emerged, the sun had come out to warm us all up.

Choir tour! Our first concert

Our first concert in Slovenia was in Ljubljana, at the Franciscan Church, which dominates the town square. We had a couple of hours to rehearse, then the concert, which began at 8pm.
I'd been warned that my daughter that although we might wear a cassock over our everyday clothes for a concert at home, on tour it would be too hot to wear anything but underwear. This proved to be true.
The people at the Franciscan Church were very welcoming and showed us into a big, cool room, where we could change and leave our stuff. We then trooped into the church for the rehearsal. The church was magnificent.

It took us all at least half an hour to stop gawping. It was great to see the kids appreciate all the decorative detail, and get their cameras out.

The organ was probably one of the best organs we had during the tour. It was huge, with a fantastic growly sound like a jungle beast, which really suited the first piece we sang, the Kyrie from Louis Vierne's Messe Solennelle.

Ljubljana is a very pretty, relaxed city, where you can sit at one of the riverside cafes and watch the world go by.

Here's the marketplace, closed up for the day by the time we finished our rehearsal.

 The staff, enjoying a brief break. My daughter's school, Emanuel, has four full-time music staff, all of whom studied either at Oxford or Cambridge. One holds a Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO) and two others have Associateships (ARCO). There are a host of instrumental teachers who come in on a part-time basis, including four singing teachers. As you can tell, this is a school that takes singing - and music - seriously.
I'm going to pause to have a little rant here. There is an attitude these days that classical music is somehow exclusive, or "posh". Working-class kids, the argument goes, don't have access to instruments, or expensive lessons, so singing Bach, rather than rap or cover versions of pop songs, is beyond them.
I find this attitude quite patronising. Anyone who can sing vaguely in tune can sing choral music; you just need to learn the notes (although it helps if you have a competent choirmaster or mistress). And of course, you need a certain level of commitment to turn up for rehearsals and concerts.
However, music is not seen as a core subject in many schools, and you have to rely on dedicated music staff - in the state sector or the private sector - to get good music-making.
The weird thing is that numerous studies have found that musical instruction improves cognitive ability in children. It's not quite clear why, and it seems that the improvement may disappear again if the children stop learning music. You'd think that would make schools - and parents - rush to put music slightly higher up the agenda, but no. It's still seen as something that's a bit trivial.

Anyway, back to Ljubljana. Wandering around the narrow streets, there are lots of architectural details to admire. One of the landmarks is the three bridges, or Tromostovje, across the river. That's two of them, in the picture below. The original bridge was quite narrow, so two pedestrian bridges were added either side in the 19th century to ease congestion. Now all of them are pedestrianised.

One of the biggest thrills of going on choir tour for me was to hear my daughter's composition, Aurum Stella, being sung by the choir in public for the first time. The choir was featured on a Slovenian television arts programme, and the concert was recorded on Italian radio and Russian television, so if I manage to get my hands on a recording, I'll post it here.

Choir tour! We arrive in Slovenia

I'd been a bit worried about going on choir tour with my daughter's school. Sitting in a cafe on rainy London afternoon months ago, it had seemed like a fun idea to go with them and sing in St Mark's in Venice.

My friend Kitty (the mother of my daughter's friend Becca) and I had suggested it as a joke.

To our surprise, the girls seemed very keen on the idea. To our greater surprise, so did the school music department (though we do sing in the parents' section of the choir for big concerts, so they knew vaguely what they were letting themselves in for.)

Perhaps it would be too exhausting. Perhaps it would be too claustrophobic, spending our holiday with 40 schoolchildren. Perhaps sharing a room would drive us mad. But then Tuesday 10 July arrived and it was too late to worry about it any longer. We flew out from Gatwick to Venice, then travelled by coach to the lake resort of Bled. 

Our tour guide, Sara, had been told by the teachers to tell the kids that the journey would take a couple of hours. In fact, it took four (including a quick stop for lunch). Kitty and I didn't realise that this was a ruse to stop the kids moaning about the length of the journey, so we spent the first few days making jokes about "Slovenian time", in which every hour seemed to be twice as long as its British equivalent.

Choir tours can be quite hectic. The point, of course, is to perform concerts, which means you need time to rehearse as well. In between, there is a chance to do other things, such as a bit of sightseeing, but there's not that much time to sit and do nothing. So when we saw the castle sitting high above the lake, and the clouds lounging lazily on the mountains, below, you could almost feel everything start to relax.

It is a lovely place, quite close to the border with Austria and about 50 miles from the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana. Slovenia's neighbours also include Italy, Croatia and Hungary, and these different influences are particularly noticeable in the cuisine. You might be offered goulash, schnitzel and pasta on the same menu.
The Slovene language is Slavic, so quite similar to Russian (especially in terms of grammar), but basic phrases for thank you and please, for example, are quite different. It doesn't look like Russian, as it uses the Latin alphabet (ABCD etc) rather than the Cyrillic alphabet. In fact, the written language looks more like Hungarian or Polish, with various stress signs to change the pronunciation of vowels and consonants. Most of the population is Catholic, and there are hundreds of old churches, some dating back to early Christian times.
Our hotel, the Hotel Park, was modern and spacious, and the food was good too - lots of salad and fresh fruit and vegetables. The sight of bowls piled high with peaches, apricots, and cherries was a treat for English eyes. (Cherries, in particular, cost a fortune in the UK.)
The service was excellent and there was a pool, with a hot tub, on the top floor, so you could sit in the hot tub and gaze out at the lake and the mountains. Bliss!

If you wanted some gentle exercise, you could walk or cycle round the lake (cycle hire was €1), and the more energetic could walk up to the castle, where there was a restaurant and a panoramic view of the surrounding hills and mountains.

There was a tiny little church on an island in the middle of the lake, and you could hire a boat to take you over. Legend has it that if you ring the church bell and make a wish, your wish will come true.

Between the trees, below, you can just see the summer toboggan zig-zagging down the hillside. A chairlift takes you up to the top, and then you whizz down a kind of monorail on a little cart. It's got a brake, so you can control it. 

Hampton Court - the fun side of flower shows

Several people asked me if I went to the Hampton Court flower show. I sort of did - and didn't.
I was working on press day, so it was Thurday by the time I got there. One of the reasons I wanted to go was to pick up some cannas from Keith Hayward. And it marked the first day of my holiday, so I felt in festive mood.
I'd taken some cash to pay for my cannas, but by the time I got to the canna stand, I'd spent it all. So I had to go to the cash machine and get some more. The cash machines weren't working, so everyone had to queue up at the bureau de change windows and do their transactions manually. It took me 20 minutes to get to the head of the queue.
If you wanted more than £50, you had to show ID. Had I got my passport with me, asked the man behind the counter. Oddly enough, my passport is not the first thing I think of slipping in my pocket when I go to a flower show, so no, I didn't. I eventually persuaded him that I was a responsible, solvent member of society and he handed over my cash. He also charged me £2.50 for the privilege of standing in line. You can always trust a bank to ruin your day!
By the time I'd faffed around at the mobile bank, spotted some bargain Chinese pots that I just had to have, picked up my cannas, and made several laborious journeys to the car with my various purchases, it was time to go home. So I didn't see any of the show gardens - but hey, I had fun. And that's what Hampton Court is for, in my opinion.

Here's a chrysanthemum display in the Floral Marquee, where I spent most of my visit (and most of my money)

I don't grow bonsai, but I always love the displays. This one was fabulous. Going on a public day made me realise how privileged I am to be able to go to shows on press day - it was really busy, and it was quite difficult to take pictures.

For me Hampton Court is a fantastic opportunity to see flowers that are at their best in mid to late summer, such as these lilies.

These dahlias, exhibited by the National Dahlia Collection, were spectacular and thoroughly deserved their gold medal. The display was designed by Mike Mann, their new operations manager, who used to be with Winchester Growers, one of the UK's biggest dahlia specialists. If you think this is a wonderful display ...

 ... here's the other side. And there were two more sides as well! It was a good illustration of how sticking to a particular colour range can provide fantastic impact.

Downderry Lavender, from Kent, deserved a medal simply for scenting the whole marquee.

There are so many tempting things on offer at Hampton Court. I loved this fountain, designed by Humphrey Bowden, and inspired by acer leaves. Luckily it was WAY out of my price range,

Hampton Court visitors are always determined to get into summer celebratory mode and have their Pimms, come rain or come shine (or black clouds).

Isn't this an adorable henhouse? One day...

Jubilee fever is still going strong, now overlaid with Olympics fervour. That is, unless you live - and drive, or work - in London, in which case everyone seems to be in a thoroughly bad temper.

My favourite canna stand! I bought 'Wyoming', which I think is a bit more subtle than 'Durban', and C. musifolia, which has olive-y green leaves with a bronze edge, so it looks good with 'Wyoming'. You don't really get flowers with musifolia, but it's a wonderfully exuberant plant.
So what else did I buy? The same old, same old, really: more heucheras from Heucheraholics ('Sweet Tea' and 'Electra'), two Mina lobata (which I meant to grow from seed but never got round to it), and a colocasia.
The Mina lobata (aka firecracker vine) was a bit of a drawback. People kept asking me what it was, and how you grew it, and whether it set seed, or whether you could grow it from seed. I didn't mind that, because I like chatting to people, but they were big plants, on canes, and I kept poking myself in rather tender places. Worse, I poked a rather grumpy woman in the leg, and she told me I had no business inflicting injuries on other visitors and I should take them back to the car forthwith. So I did.
However, if anyone is interested, they grow as annuals in the UK, and they are unlikely to seed themselves around in the garden because they need a good deal of heat to germinate.
You can buy seeds (from Thompson & Morgan) and the packet will tell you to soak the seeds in warm water for at least 24 hours to allow germination to start. In my experience, the best thing is to pour BOILING water on to them, and leave them for a couple of days. You can see very clearly which ones are viable, because the seeds will start to swell and even split.
Once they start to swell, you can plant them up in seed compost in the normal way. Don't plant them too early in the season unless you have a greenhouse - they will just get very leggy and tie themselves in knots long before they are ready to go outside.

The green stuff (and my new Bosch mower)

Esther, who is one of my favouritest bloggers, has just written a post about lawns. What is a lawn, she asks? How does it differ from a playing field or a tennis court?
Very good question, and it's a very thought-provoking post. I started to write a comment, and then thought that I might turn it into a post myself.
The subject of lawns is a fraught one. First, there are the environmental considerations - it seems mad to insist that people have lawns in dry regions, for example.

Conversely, if you have a very shady garden, you may find it difficult to sustain a healthy green sward because grass needs a certain amount of nice, warm sunshine in order to grow.
My grass gets a fair amount of sun, and it's pretty trouble-free - the two patches you can see in the picture above are where I left a couple of pots of eucomis for, erm, rather longer than I meant.
I don't bother to water, or weed and feed it (although I take out broad-leaved weeds such as dandelions and plantains by hand). I'm always chopping bits off it to make new planting areas. I have thought of getting rid of it altogether, but I like the sight of birds hopping about on it looking for worms.
I commented on Esther's blog that lawns are for doing nothing in particular. They are a restful space for the mind and the eye - you can feel both extending their length of focus as you gaze out across the grass. There has to be a contrast, however: acres of mown grass, or the sort of grass verges that you get in housing estates, aren't interesting at all because there's no focal point.
In my garden, I like the way the two-dimensionality of the lawn provides a contrast with the jungly plants. And I love the feel of it underfoot, that cool, refreshing dampness.
So far, so green. But I have a confession to make: I LOVE mowing. I don't know why - maybe I was a man in another life. I love it even more now that I have a brand-new lawnmower.
It's the first new lawnmower I've ever had, strangely enough. I've always inherited old ones from friends or family. So forgive me for getting a little overexcited about it.

It's a Bosch Rotak 37 LI Ergoflex, and it is truly wonderful. It wasn't free (though I did get a show discount, because I bought it at Chelsea), so this is an impartial, unsolicited review. The LI bit means that it is cordless, and the Ergoflex bit means that it is designed to be used by left-handed or right-handed people with equal ease. The figure 37 refers to the cutting width - there is good range of sizes.
The handles are designed a bit like one of those folding baby buggies, which makes it much easier to manoeuvre. And there are four power buttons, so you can hold the power on with whichever hand is easier. (Interestingly, I've found that's my left hand, because I use the right to steer.)
Compared with the old-fashioned straight bar arrangement, with the power on the right, it's much less strain on the back and the arms. For anyone with problems such as RSI, or back trouble, it is a joy to use.

The mower is powered by a 36V Lithium-Ion battery, which is housed on the front of the mower. It charges in only 90 minutes and the Lithium-Ion technology means that it doesn't lose its charge. Nor does it do it any harm to leave the battery on the charger, but I've found I can replace the battery, leave the mower in the shed for a week, and it still worked perfectly well.

The cutting height is adjusted with the red handle on the right-hand side. It moves all the wheels at once, so you don't have to faff about changing each one individually, or doing the front and the back. The handle folds down - you just undo the orange clips at each side - and there's a handy grab handle just above the battery which makes it easy to pick the whole thing up and sling it in the shed. It weighs 14kg, which is 28lbs in old money.

I dithered a lot about whether to get a cordless model. It's more expensive than the conventional electric mower, and initially I couldn't see the point of spending all that money just to get out of winding and unwinding the flex. We have a circuit breaker on the garden sockets, so safety wasn't so much of a concern.
However, I found it was really easy to decapitate plants, or pull over pots, with my old mower, and I was constantly performing a kind of rodeo show, trying to flip or loop the flex out of the way. So I'm very grateful to my friends Dominic and Stuart for persuading me that a cordless would be a good buy.
If you're thinking of buying a mower - or any gardening equipment - shows are a good place to look. It's a great opportunity to see the whole range, and have someone who knows the product really well explain it to you. (I got teased by my friend Pattie because the chap who was showing me how the mower worked, Bosch regional brand manager Joao Barufi, was incredibly good-looking.)
There's usually a show discount of some kind, which makes the prices more competitive. I couldn't find my model any cheaper on the internet - and my mower was delivered two days later free of charge.
I'm sure that lovely Esther did not intend for me to go off into a lawnmower review when she started writing about lawns. Sorry, Esther!

Hairy Potter and the chamber of secrets: Luigi's garden blog

 There's something about this big empty terracotta pot that absolutely fascinates Luigi. Haven't a clue what it is, but he can spend ages walking round the rim, having a good look inside. He has occasionally got right inside it - and seems able to jump out again without any difficulty. He reminds me of one of those old brandy glass ornaments you used to get in the Seventies, with the cat climbing up the side.