Coming Up Roses

As sure as night follows day, the Uppingham Flower & Produce Show comes rolling around just a little bit too soon for comfort. It's been a difficult year in the garden, with virtually zero rainfall and what seemed like quite a late start to the season. Most of the vegetables have only really got going, and many of the floral stuff is now on the turn.

As it was, we managed to scrape together ten entries, from which we achieved five prizes including a first for Parsnips, and most thrillingly of all, a first in the hotly contested Single Rose category. There it is on the right in all it's deep, velvety glory.

The reward for our growing and baking endeavours was a firm shake of the hand from the lovely Lady Mayoress of Rutland, and the presentation of a well-polished Mathews Rose Cup, which now has pride of place on the windowsill pending installation of a proper mantelpiece.

Embarrassingly, the cup will now be engraved with my name, this despite the fact that Karen is much more the flower girl than me. I'll put this down to an admin error. All our entries go in under one or other of our names, it just so happens that it was my turn this year. If watering and dead-heading counts for anything, I could claim a little of the glory, but in truth it should all go to Karen, known from now on as the Rose Queen of Middleton.