The RHS Tatton Flower Show - by Cheshire Photographer, Jane Burkinshaw

Take one look at my garden planted haphazardly with plants that are probably ill-suited to the soil type, aspect or location and you’ll know I’m not a skilled gardener. Those flowers that thrive do so in spite of my efforts. I don’t even particularly like gardening, limiting myself to bunging in some bedding plants, pulling up a few weeds and doing a bit of dead heading, whilst sipping a glass of wine on a summer’s evening. I do, however, love sitting out in the garden, admiring my efforts and am often found swinging gently in the hammock, enjoying a latte or aforementioned glass of wine, depending on how low the sun is in the sky!

Whilst gardening isn't a great passion of mine, photography is, particularly close ups of plants and flowers. I’ve visited many of Cheshire’s beautiful gardens and lost myself for several hours, engrossed in my favourite activity.

One of the many glorious show gardens - I love the quirky ones!

Going to the RHS Tatton Flower Show is an un-missable opportunity for me to indulge in my love for flower photography, enjoyment of other people’s hard work in creating beautiful outside spaces and, of course, some retail therapy. And did I mention drinking Pimms in the sunshine and nattering with Debbie, my sister-in-law? A day at Tatton isn’t always this idyllic – we’ve stood like drowned rats in the entrance to the floral marquee and fought vicious battles with pensioners over free tables and chairs in the sheltered eating areas.

But this year’s visit on Friday 26^th July was absolutely perfect, with wall-to-wall sunshine guaranteed. The newly invented Ladies’ Day inspired us to switch jeans and crocs for sandals and frocks (neither of us do posh hats, we haven’t got the right kind of heads) and we set off on our grand day out in the Cheshire countryside.

Propping each other up!

Ladies day for young and old

One of the things I really love about our annual visit, aside from the awe inspiring gardens and floral displays, is that it is a wonderful place for endulging in people watching. I have a hypothesis that you can break down the visitors to Tatton into four main types (forgive me, these are a bit tongue in cheek):

The stalwart RHS members who take their gardening extremely seriously, as evidenced by their sensible walking shoes, rucksacks, picnic lunches, thermos flasks and those walking sticks that become little stools.

The Cheshire Set – posh summer frocks and big handbags, 3 course luncheon reservations in the formal dining room and jugs of Pimms in the afternoon. Ladies Day gave them the excuse for even posher frocks and big hats this year.

Weekend gardeners – that’s us! We’re there to enjoy a day out admiring the show gardens, pick up a few plants that are unlikely to see another season and buy some totally useless garden gadget. I’ve been known to arrive home with a rake that no one could use and a very expensive blender that is only ever employed to make smoothies these days.

And finally the photographers (me in spirit) who are focused (!) solely on capturing shots of the abundance of beautiful plants and gardens. Almost every visitor to Tatton has a camera in some guise but I’m talking about the true enthusiast or pro with cameras and bags hanging off both shoulders.

I would love to visit the flower show twice each year, once as a browser, shopper and sipper of Pimms and then again a second time armed only with my camera and a zoom lens. I’ve managed to combine both needs each year on one visit but I have to strike a compromise to ensure that Debbie wants to come along with me the following year!

This year I stood near the exit just before the show closed - in the lovely low slanting sunlight of early evening – and enjoyed watching people leave, dragging behind them trollies full of bobbing flowers, carrying long pieces of twisted metal trellis, occasionally smart designer carrier bags (the posh ones with string handles) and some just with a single plastic bag containing a few much sought after plant specimens. I think everyone leaves at the end of the day with a smile on their face (aching, possibly soggy feet aside), for there’s something very uplifting about being surrounded for a day by nature’s bounty. With bees buzzing around flower heads wherever you turn and butterflies flitting from one bloom to another it feels like a little bit of paradise, pure escapism for a day.

But not everyone loves Tatton!

This blog was  originally published on the Cheshire Life website. I've included more pics here.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

Made in Cheshire

Dinner, bed and breakfast at a luxury country hotel and kids on sleepovers – fantastic! As soon as offspring and dog were despatched, we headed off to Nunsmere Hall Hotel with a guilty sense of freedom and anticipation of an evening of fine food and wine.

This was likely to be a bit of a busman’s holiday for me, having promised to take a few photographs of the food, as it was a rather special event – a Made in Cheshire evening with all the food sourced from within the county, even including staple ingredients such as flour and salt. As people gathered in the bar and on the terrace in the warm evening sunshine, they were offered a champagne flute of locally made, chilled cider. I, in the meantime, was nipping in and out of the kitchen photographing Chef for the evening, Mark Fletcher, putting the finishing touches to the canapés of scotch quails eggs and welsh toast. I did find time to sample both the cider and canapés and was very pleasantly surprised by just how refreshing and enjoyable cider can be, as an alternative to the more traditional champagne.

I had spent some time chatting with Mark, usually the Sous Chef at Nunsmere, but very much in charge of the Made in Cheshire evening, and he had told me with some pride how he had personally sourced all of the ingredients from suppliers within a thirty mile radius of Nunsmere Hall. He came into the bar to welcome the diners and to talk enthusiastically and humorously about the menu, despite being much more comfortable behind the scenes in the busy, hot kitchen. I don’t envy anyone working in such a heated and pressured environment – it would be my idea of hell – but the kitchen staff seem to thrive on it. Behind the swing doors it was noisy with the banging and clattering of pans, instructions were shouted across the kitchen, there were people rushing about and all seemed rather chaotic to me. But then as a course was plated up and Chef shouted “service!” suddenly all fell into place, waiters and waitresses appeared as if by magic and calmly ferried the dishes out to the dining room. Mark took a gulp of tea from his West Ham mug (I promised to fit in a mention!) and then moved onto preparing the next course.

Out in the restaurant everyone was enjoying the gazpacho with a selection of breads made from locally milled flour. This was followed by a visually stunning goat’s cheese and beetroot dish, which brought out the geek in my husband: “it’s a cone bisected by a plane, which would create an ellipse if sliced across...”. Personally I just thought it looked amazing and tasted divine! Each course was accompanied by a different wine and we had a lively conversation about how hard it is to find wine that tastes as good as those in a restaurant. I think we were underestimating the skill required to match wine with food and then serve it at the right temperature in the correct glass. The goat’s cheese was followed by trout caught locally.

By now my fellow diners and long suffering husband were getting used to me dashing away from the table between courses – at least the presence of my camera reassured them that I hadn’t just got a very weak bladder! In the kitchen the medallions of beef were being plated up and Mark’s two young sous chefs for the evening were carefully adding the vegetables. The attention to detail in the presentation of food never fails to amaze me – as an artist bends in concentration, nose almost touching the canvas, so a chef leans over each dish, carefully positioning each item and then adding jus or sauce with a flourish like a signature. The end result looked almost too good to eat, but you could soon hear the scraping of cutlery on empty plates and the rise in chatter that signals the end of a course. We were enjoying the company of the people around us, the majority being strangers to us beforehand. The couple next to us explained that they had bid for the Made in Cheshire Evening (plus bed and breakfast) at a charity auction, with Steven, at the time, under the illusion he was bidding for a balloon ride and egging on his partner, Jane, to bid increasingly higher!

As we enjoyed a short break before dessert, we could see a figure with a torch roaming around the edges of the garden and eventually setting up a white sheet and bright lamp on the lawn. This turned out to be Fungal Punk, a familiar figure at Nunsmere Hall, preparing for a late night moth hunt. I don’t know about anyone else, but in my experience a restaurant dinner has never been followed by a midnight search for Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies to you and me), but more on that in a moment! Dessert was a fruit salad served with locally made elderflower ice cream , followed by a fantastic selection of Cheshire cheeses. I could have grazed on the cheese and sipped port until bedtime but the moths were gathering outside to put on a show for us. Actually it turned out to be a little too late and a little too bright (almost full moon) for them and they had to be enticed out with a mixture of wine and treacle daubed on tree trunks. We must have made a strange sight weaving our slightly tipsy way through the tree line along the edges of the lawn, stopping to peer at moths and spiders in the light of Fungal Punk’s torch (the only torch (!) and we lost a few diners along the way!).

Back to the bar, laughing about our midnight walk and a quick brandy before bed. This was a delicious, fun, and very entertaining evening and nothing like hard work for me.

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!

Nunsmere Hall Hotel

I first became acquainted with Nunsmere Hall Hotel when my husband booked a surprise overnight stay for our wedding anniversary in 2004. We enjoyed a delicious meal in an intimate dining room and loved our slightly quirky room with its own little staircase and very comfy and luxurious bed. The next morning it was very cold, clear and frosty and after breakfast we strolled around the gardens, taking photographs of the white coated lawns raked with long shadows from the line of trees in front of the lake. Little did I realise at that time that my career would take such a different direction that I would end up photographing the hotel in a professional capacity a few years later. Through my portrait work I met the manager of the hotel, Mark, and his family last year and have photographed them several times now, with the hotel making a spectacular location for the shoots. When we had the so called “snow events” in February Mark invited me to photograph the hotel and grounds and will be featuring the above shot on the cover of the 2009 winter brochure. Other shots have made it into Cheshire Life, one as an advertisement and another (see left) accompanying a feature on top Cheshire restaurants. Mark and his team at Nunsmere Hall are highly professional, but also very friendly and informal and I always enjoy my visits there, whether for business or for pleasure!

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!