THE TV CARPENTER : Home Makeovers with Wayne Perrey

Wayne chats with Alan Gardener, horticulturalist and presenter of Autistic Gardener

January 31, 2020 Wayne / Alan Gardener Season 2 Episode 23
THE TV CARPENTER : Home Makeovers with Wayne Perrey
Wayne chats with Alan Gardener, horticulturalist and presenter of Autistic Gardener
Show Notes Transcript

This week I chat with Alan Gardener  Horticulturalist and Presenter of C5 Autistic Gardener, we discuss designing show gardens, and how he is managing since recovering from major heart failure.
Guest: www.alangardenerdesign.com

Sponsor: To take advantage of the generous 15% discount from my sponsor Thorndown, please visit http://bit.ly/TVCarpenter. Discount code: TVCarpenter

Contact me: Wayne Perrey on Twitter and Instagram.

Music: "What's the Angle" by Shane Ivers


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Speaker 1:

On today's show, I'll be talking with Alan Gardner. He's the Chelsea flower show designer and TV presenter of the autistic Gardner.

Speaker 2:

I had NASA before, but trying to income, you know, I never had the lessons in my life. I'm a Holter culturalist so I knew all about the ingredients, but I wasn't sure about how you should put it together. Um, and, and I think that was probably the best thing. Um, some of the crises, Scott, so I'll end this at that. I've never been on a course and that law is of Plaza around item for you. You go like Talisha view, you take a course and everybody comes out and they thought in the same way. Yeah, design should be fun. I personally would like to ditch the drawers.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the TV. Carpenter. My name is Wayne Perry. This is a podcast where I interview my friends from the world of interior design shows and garden makeover shows all with the aim of empowering you to create your dream home. So I've been busy, uh, this last week. It's been absolutely crazy because this week I've had loads of meetings with the ideal home champ. As I said before, I'm working with the idle home show this year I'm doing upcycling talks and doing some DIY talks. Are we teaching people how to seal your bath and how to fix wonky kitchen cabinets and how to update and improve your home on a budget. I'll be doing those on the main stage. Um, and also we've had a load of meetings this week with the lovely Lynn Lambo and you remember she was one of my guests and she talked a lot about sustainability and also I co designed and built the show garden with her last year and we've been asked to do it again this year. That beam of the idol home show we're pleased to say is sustainability. The whole of the event is pushing for people to be sustainable in the way they build, in the way they design. And so there's a big drive for that. So the garden again will always, if it involves Lynn and myself, it will, it will always have a sustainability element to it. So me and Lynn have had quite a few meetings with the idle home show people and together coming up with some cool designs. So this week has been mainly mainly working on that and also working on the podcast. So, um, and having chats with various different people to come on and be a guest on the live podcast recordings that we'll be doing at the idle home show. And I'm just waiting for some final confirmations, but I've got some pretty exciting names who are interested in, in being interviewed by me for this podcast. Um, I've also finally finished, um, my downstairs hall. I've added all the other little bits and bobs to it, so I made a huge mirror along mirror and I've added some gold, um, trim to it. And also I've made gold lights. And also at the top of the door, I had a, um, a glass panel above which had the wire in there and it had to be there for fire safety reasons. Um, but it always looks really ugly and I had some spare Ratan cane so I've decided to put some Ratan cane up there which will cover it. So a look like a nice screen, which is going to look really good. So if you get chance to have a look on my Instagram and you shouldn't can see that it was great using the thorn down paint, the new, um, blue Avalon blue, which is going to be part of their new heritage range. And it was great just, you know, using their paint properly. I've used it before in the past and I know it's good and I've mainly used it externally, but it was nice to use it inside, particularly as it was going to go. It went on wood and also it went on the walls. It went on MDF, it went on pine and it covered really well. I ended up giving it three coats because it was a whole way. The first coat was a bit like a primer and then after that it was just, he just went on like a dream and uh, it, it blocks out the color. I've had so many people speak to me saying how much they enjoy it and how much they've loved it and actually where can they get that color from? So don't forget, if you go to thorn down dot code at UK and type in the code, uh, the TB carpenter or just TB carpenter, you receive 15% discount on all their online purchases. So I had a little chat with Caroline about thorn down being used as an internal paint and um, as I can upcycling projects and things. So have a little listen to this short one minute interview with Caroline as we discuss the benefits of using thorn down, went up cycling

Speaker 3:

for upcycling furniture in particular, it's just so nice and easy to use because it is so durable. Um, it means that you don't have to do loads of different processes to it. The fact itself, priming means that you can literally just slap a single coat of paint onto a piece of wooden furniture. Um, and one coat will give it that really nice shabby chic look. Um, or you can do two coats and have a far nice, that kind of almost then my brand new kind of look to it. Um, I think it's just a, it's a very nice paint to use with the extensive color range as well. And you just have so much scope and you don't have to spend ages with it of all the prep and then having to put top coats on top of it either cause some other paints you have to let seal with waxes and varnishes and things like that with, you know, we know that this has got like a satin finish to it already. So it all feels like it's finished after two coats. Exactly, yes. And because it is so durable because it's designed to be water repellent and to, to live and to last outside than inside a house, um, it means that it's even more durable. Um, and it's great for things like for bathroom panel in and also for kitchen cupboards cause they're the kinds of things that take a lot of punishments. So lots of water gets sprayed over them. You have to scrub them clean. So with these paints again, it just means

Speaker 1:

that you only need a couple of coats and it's all done and it's going to stay looking good for years. And now it's time for the main event as you get to listen to my interview with the lovely Alan Gardner, or as you might know him, the autistic gardener, I've known Alan for about four or five years. I did my first ever garden show on his show, the autistic gardener where I got to make this crazy God seek denim. And we talk about that in the interview. But a little bit of information about Allen, he sadly had severe heart failure about two years ago, I think, two and a half years ago. And he was not, wasn't feeling very well. And I think it took about 11 different appointments to doctors before they suddenly realized that actually he got rushed to hospital and he lost about 80% of his heart. So he really struggles at the moment. I think he said at one point who, you know, he does use allotment on his hands and knees if he stands up too quickly, he faints. Please slowly get him better. He's had a heart black pacemaker fitted and he's had major heart surgery. So he's been off our screens for awhile, but he's coming back, he's got some, um, flower show events happening and he's doing some show gardens. He's done so much. And I wanted to get him on the podcast just because he's a fountain of all knowledge and, and the way he, he works is so different to any garden designer I a high have ever worked with before. He's so much fun. Firstly, actually I just want to say how you doing? How's things?

Speaker 2:

I think you're right. Yeah. Hey, best way to put this is unbroken. Uh, so the, the, the failures don't get the sensations I get, uh, that, that difference. And I don't understand. Yeah. I, I don't fail on well to the points off, but yeah, sometimes I get palpitations. Sometimes I might have a bit of, I'm Joanna. Um, sometimes I've been six cruel all over me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, just the feel of it. That sense of[inaudible].

Speaker 2:

Yeah. That's when my defibrillators switched itself on and wants to give me a little kick.

Speaker 1:

Um, so what, ha, so how does the deliberate later work then? Does it sense that your heart's not working 100% and then just gives you a boost

Speaker 2:

or like to say it's a future proof to stop me having a cardiac arrest. So you've got to understand that a cardiac arrest is an electrical fault. Your heart just stops beating. You have four minutes to leave, um, precursor to having that. Your heart goes into the regular pattern. Um, Hey, we'll send that happening and he will shock me back into rhythm. So he, he's done very little over the last six months. He was shocking me twice a week at one point[inaudible] couple of months ago that my, does that doctor get on an airplane and fly to America? Wow. Um, if I took necessary the cautions before then it was, you'd probably have to take oxygen and you go, why would you do that to yourself? Uh, what is the point of trying to kill myself by three?[inaudible][inaudible] you know, you wanna do it. Um, I'm doing my first show garden.

Speaker 4:

No. Wow.

Speaker 2:

Um, since heart failure, I've done 40, I'm in about three gardens at Chelsea from doing the garden at bloom.

Speaker 4:

Okay. Fabulous.

Speaker 2:

The Irish Chelsea.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. When does that, when, when is that, when, when will that be announced then?

Speaker 2:

Um, very shortly in January hospital. Empty smug. From time I would have hoped the show was, he may, I'm doing it for an autism charity.

Speaker 4:

Fabulous. So what's the process of, of getting a garden at someone that bloom or somewhere like that? Chelsea, how does that work then?

Speaker 2:

So you have to come up with a design and so many and have so much pie for you.

Speaker 4:

Okay. So you, you, you, you pitch the idea to Chelsea and they pick from that all the designs that come through and then yeah,

Speaker 2:

you submit a design the code and say a criteria that they want to see everything and you've got to have someone who's basically gone on going to pay for this.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. So you get a sponsorship deal or some sort of,

Speaker 2:

so, and um, all I was in the Kilty candy cork, um, for four days, uh, Mandy came along to give a talk, um, like type me talk. So we'd gone over to Ireland. So they're looking after his port as Paul showed towels. Um, I don't know, it just had the little chat about chunk ovens and I ended up in front of a guy called Eugene Scally, uh, who, um, SuperValu, which is the biggest chain of supermarkets, you know, Island of the 200 supermarkets. And he was positive, but the franchise thing I didn't see to, but he tells me the, and he said side, like a gray card, their lens across the table. He shook my hand and says, I'll give you 40,000 euros.

Speaker 4:

Amazing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was. That was oddly baby Gary to get a show job the way I've done it up, designed to submit today. It's been approved, been accepted. I've basically passed it to my show garden tape and got Baker.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. So I think last time was last time I spoke to you, we were chatting and you just saying literally you can't stand up too quickly without fainting. So you were gardening in your allotment but kind of on your hands and knees.

Speaker 2:

I, I can't, you can't put your finger on it. Um, yeah. I they 12,000 steps of die. It's slight struggle, but you know, I could do lots of things. I can't dig holes, a car, plant plants. I can look after my allotment on all fours, but then the other, I'd be solid deep to go with the 12th ran the door handles of the doors, you know, where everybody sort of grabs the door and[inaudible] um, only did four doors now that then, and Rotech still I made and you know what I mean? I went to, I lived for four days and did very long days and talks of an evening time and was[inaudible].

Speaker 4:

Yeah. So it's weird. It's so what, how, how will you do the, the show garden then? How, how much of that will you be involved? Are you literally going to hand it over to your team and then just watch from afar? But cause I know you, Alan, I've worked with you, I know you like to get stuck here.

Speaker 2:

Uh, watching from a bow. What would he say? 350 mile away.

Speaker 4:

Really. So you're literally going to keep that far away cause I know you would want to get involved.

Speaker 2:

I, I passed the plan into uh, to Jack who, who's the garden design. It's done show gardens and she helped me plan the Chelsea. Got she possibly the plants that I put the meat in, one and a half thousand of them. So what do I do? Do I fly to Ireland? Go visit all the nurseries, choose all the plans, sites a jab, there's a plan, and then sit there for a week in a chair looking after we got off the stove purple wasn't there. I went, no, I ain't gonna do any of that. They go Jack off to Island planting and I'm going to turn up the day before the show.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, just the[inaudible]

Speaker 2:

they did see anyone I could did it. I trust them wholly. Um, if I can't do it, I can't do it. This, it's, yeah, I'm lying on the bed that hug Chaffey to you about this and I lie in the bed checking to that about, about back thinking. Yeah, I could do that. I couldn't even walk it, you know.

Speaker 4:

Oh bless you.

Speaker 2:

Got to judge yourself, bug what you previously could do. He's off duty that at that and I think I've been very well, I've been immensely lucky in the fact that, Hey, I am doing all right. I was supposed to be dead, you know. No, I keep it said deputy, the boat's 12 buttons. He's been out of the two. Yes ma'am. Um, so it should be, you know, should be grateful for that and just adapt and do things that show God land is upon a plight in front of me. You know, I wasn't going to turn back 40,000 year rounds to go. Um, it was an opportunity for an autism charity as I am a, and they'll get a lot of good from it.

Speaker 4:

I worked with you on the autistic garden. The whole premise of that was that your, your brain, you were using your brain that the gift that you've been given at, you know, as an artistic guy, you, your brain thinks differently. So you design gardens differently. So talk me through that process then. What makes your designs different? Joe blogs design a, down the road

Speaker 2:

I have to pay something different than the gardens that, that have to be, has to be bold. Um, and in my case I'm adding a narrative, um, about even story or reason why the garden is what the garden is. So, yeah, I mean I just completed the garden in Southern Island. That's surrounded by people cause then I need to bring into that or it's around the, he's always very important. Yeah. You get gardens in different locations. Um, I've got a garden at the moment to do with in Staffordshire, which she's, which is quite exciting for me is be the first garden from the last six. I haven't got to go on an airplane to go to see, um, just getting the car go. But all these, uh, uh, you know, did a garden and old and they, you know, what are the smaller channel oils? Um, did the God made Norfolk the overlook, the broads where I put triangular walls in that were like little gateways into the garden, which made me disciples of the ships that went past the boats. Um, and then we chart the black because all the bonds in that part of the woods are actually chart timber to preserve the, so we're picking up the charcoal preserved bonds and we're picking up the shapes, the boats that go through the broads.

Speaker 4:

So there's always like a narrative. Then you always try and link onto something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. That, that, that has to be a reasoning why. And a lot of job designers that they had basically tried to reinvent the wheel. They cause 11 God is on his team and he said the days, you know, the jacuzzi, the decking, the, the wall, the glasses that you know, that they're becoming, have those living spices. But for human beings where I think the truth of mastery is they have to be, have dual living spaces for every creature. There is not just for us, we have to share it.

Speaker 4:

Does gardens still excite you then do this, it still give you a buzz?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah. What if they did it?

Speaker 4:

That's true.

Speaker 2:

As soon as that becomes sorts of, you know, Oh, by Leah, two years ago you'd be a chance to, if I wanted to shoot myself, I didn't think, well I had done previous was wrong. I mean I've had a lovely life and then if it all ended there, I think I could have been caught content. Um, this was not a second chance. This was going to, how to put this, when does the prospect of you possibly dying really does allow you to only put up whatever you want in a, in a very, very strange way. I mean I've never been the sort of person that I, you know, there've been the sort of person that cares what people thought or you wouldn't want rambly, bright pink hair doing something that you want to. But there is this, you know, I haven't got to worry about an ongoing 10 year future career cause I ain't going to pay one. Get on with it.

Speaker 4:

Knowing that you've just said, you know, you know there might not be a 10 year career, but do you, does the seasons affect you now or like every year? Like I plant, I plant something. For example in my garden I have a bleeding heart plants that I packed a bowl a few years ago and every spring it comes up bigger and better and it just, sparks is joining me seeing that I haven't managed to kill it off cause it literally dies down to nothing and then comes back in full bloom. And you see that, you know yearly thing that happens. Has your planting changed because you know you might not see something into its fruition in five, 10 years time

Speaker 2:

you, you have to the garden, the I've, I've got to do it stop for sure. I want to have lots of trees. The fact that I want to be here to see them fully drought and for that matter needs a year doesn't really stop the cause. It's treacly do that. I've always been very fond of of what could be researched to us. So bubbles planting like poppies that looked glorious for about two or three weeks and then a gone. That just looks spectacular. Then I just kind of opened my car rhododendrons soap bubbles are there. They come out in the spring and like your dose Sentra probably looks really fantastic for about two or three weeks and then, yeah,

Speaker 4:

so it hasn't altered you still, you still just, you've always, you've always done it that way, which is amazing. How did you get into the world of cause I was like, because I met you doing the autistic garden gardener where you, you force me to build a God sick dome, which I've never fully forgiven you for that.

Speaker 2:

Rearrange those words there. Remember?

Speaker 4:

Well I remember, I remember it.

Speaker 2:

Look on your face, but these guys do the take. How is this, I got gotta admit that they, the end result they'd look like Luda landed won't you?

Speaker 4:

Well I think what it was is I was booked by the garden producer theater, make this DOD sit down, which I thought was going to be a kit. And then I arrived on on the day and was told, no, you're making it from scratch, from sheets of Birch, from CLI. And then I think I swore at Thea off-camera going, I can't do this. And she went, well you're here now you're better. And then while I'm chatting with you, you go, yeah, actually I was thinking we'd like to put what window is in it. It needs to be watertight. Cause we'd put an electric in there and we'd let the top to open up like a Lotus flower. And at that, at that point, I remember looking at it going, I couldn't even spell the word. I even say the word God sick. So, um, but yeah, so I worked with you.

Speaker 2:

I was all too scaly. I don't have to know how to do it.

Speaker 4:

I employ other people to put you can point and make me do it. But actually to be fair, it was the first garden show I'd ever done and it was probably one of the, to date. It's probably one of the best things I've ever made. And I was, I was super proud of that, but

Speaker 2:

that was fun. It's fun for them. They get one year. Yeah. You ain't even with that the Capra's that would've been fun. You know, it was, it was something different. And I think that that's what's cool about it is the sort of contracts was that I got that, that doing my work, um, when I contact them, I saw[inaudible] for that. The, the excitement is tangible. Yeah. Baseball guys are like balls of balls, the balls of brick slaps and submit lines by an error is the chance to do something different. Um, and I say evens, I even write out Ray Lloyd's, what's going to look like? It's like phase I alien films where they actually said to instruction and you follow the, you build yourself a spaceship. That's what makes life interesting, isn't it?

Speaker 4:

Yeah. And I think that's, yeah, that's what makes you interesting though, Alan. I think, like I said, I've worked on lots of gardens shows and I, and I've seen some amazing designs, but I, you know, working with you on the artistic garden and just seeing, just, I remember we did one, um, and you went off the, the inspiration was you went off on the mowers and they had these big wind turbines and you chose like where the shadows of the wind, when the wind taybarns weren't turning and there was still, and you've got these crisscross lines in the ground of the shadows where the blades pass. Yeah. And that was the thing for the garden and that, cause originally the theme was the Molins or something like that. And they were like most people would do rolling Hills, but you chose these angles and angulars and, and then you know, like the God sick, you went off grid references lines. So apt to go from the, the grid reference lines, you know, of latitude and altitude. So there were way left field, but actually the response in the garden and the big cost, we put those little constraints within your design. It meant that it was just brilliant. And I think that's what's made your design so exciting. But how did you get into design to start as, how did you get into TV gardens anyway? How did you end up working on TV?

Speaker 2:

Well, I was doing general garden activities as a self employed person and maintaining things. Um, God designed like done some previously. Um, and I decided in 1996 it's always scary to do ground design. I had never been formally trained in gum and you know, I never had a lesson in my life. I'm a whole tree culturalist so I knew all about the ingredients, but I wasn't sure about how you should put it together. Um, and, and I think that was probably the best thing. Um, some of the gripey Scott[inaudible], I've never been on a course in their lives and Plaza around them for you. You go like Talisha you, you take a course and everybody comes out. It's all in the same way. These only should be fun. I personally would like to ditch the drawers. People get very, very confused about droids. You get God and designed to do beautiful. Troy's the door, every single little break and every little single slab in it where what you did is designed to go up and then selling the design to a client not to drooling. There's two very separate things that the drawing is a means to show the client what you want to do. And he said means to show the contrast of where things have to go. But that's where it starts. That's where it ends.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Things have to organically what's quite nice about you? Like, you know, because it was a TV show, things had to be planned out cause we're limited with time, but there was still an element of actually, you know, that's not going to work. And you, you know,

Speaker 2:

realize for instance that the one based on wind turbines, um, every single series was the same. But when you see on the TV, it makes the client, that's the first time I've met the client. Um, I have a bet the beforehand, um, and then when I go away from there, I had four days to design it. And then that design has to be taken to the production companies, London, where I would discuss it with everybody in the room and they would fail. And then that failed. We'll send to turn to channel four and then the channel four bosses would look at it to see if they liked it or not. And then they would come back and go, yeah, okay. And then say you would have to come and find all the materials for it.

Speaker 4:

Ah, okay. So, um,

Speaker 2:

on each one, you know, and I could spend, I could spend two or three weeks thinking about a design. Yeah. You don't just sit to the drawing board and start drawing. You've got to know what you're going to draw before you draw it. Am I going to draw a spaceship or I'm going to draw a cow. You know, you've got to know what you're going to, what you want. So you have to think about it. I don't know. I just wonder and you know, go for a walk or whatever. Cause the next two weeks think about it. Where do I have[inaudible]

Speaker 4:

yeah. And how, like, what I love, we've celebrated your autism and it's kind of been a, you know, it's, it's proved that you've been able to create some amazing, amazing designs, but has it, has the autism ever been an issue for you in, cause I know what TV environments are like, and I know you don't go to press night parties and things like that, you know, has it, has it ever caused you to be uncomfortable whilst in those situations it's doing those kinds of shows?

Speaker 2:

Um, Hebei apparently appears to be very artistically friendly. You know, you're escorted Willow was, it wasn't because I was autistic, you know, they would arrange for me to tell me some tickets for a tried. Uh, cause the say I should go on the tribe.[inaudible] and that was it for an entire week. There was always somebody with the old people with me, you know, I went to three States in America. There's two people always with me would be on the plane to be plane, got my bag, took me to the hotel, you know, I didn't have to think about anything. All I ask the Cubs to try top was standing in the middle of this apnea and then the camera go going three, two, one. Yeah, that, that's been my bit to do because everybody's doing something different. People are failed but it, Sam recording, whatever. And my bit is a bit started with the camera and talk to it. But much to my surprise, nobody wanted that bit. They're all a nice production. Their body wanted to be pulling to the camera. I would go rather the Heights beyond the tripod. I every time, every time we failed something, he was like, I'd gone for an X Ray. You know, where they stick you in the room and everybody runs off an impressible. It's, it's a bit like that. I find it very comfortable. But as you said, I don't do parties. I didn't go to my own rap party is the fail me. I did neighborhood. Are there any social stuff that was associated with the program whatsoever? Cause I, I don't do that. And then people that believe when I say I'm not sociable, um, you know,[inaudible] we, we don't have friends round. Um, we've dealt, go out for males with friends and we'd have[inaudible].

Speaker 4:

I, like I say, I know you're an ambassador for your, you know, the autism charities and, and I know that you know, you, what the program did you know, the artistic gardener, you did two series of it. Were you the first series you took, you know, young human potential garden who all had autism. And then the second series was just yourself designing gardens. It just, it shine a light on the whole artistic community and just showed it in a positive light. Um, which is, which I thought was amazing and it was really

Speaker 2:

the wife, the wife's phone was now as far as the television because they made the different things made to be the autistic presenter. Nobody uses the word or picnic, not even one. That wall, here's a man presenting the program as I have[inaudible] saying. Um, the fact that I'm autistic thing like dancing. I know ice has got the first same sex couple, they came up this morning, my breakfast shows are sort of provides it, but they were the first to admit that they shouldn't be promoted it cause it shouldn't be wrong.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. It should be the norm.

Speaker 2:

Be different that they were promoted it because it had never been dug before. But I think autism with gain about for may presenting something on Pele and I'm autistic but not using autism in every single center.

Speaker 4:

Brilliant. Absolutely. Well fingers crossed all that work. Like you say there's, you know, T V come back to you and

Speaker 2:

Leanne's, but I feel sorry for everybody else. Here I come.

Speaker 4:

Alright.

Speaker 2:

On Twitter, who sorts of tweets, why have you been on[inaudible] time? They'll probably be tweeting. Why you always[inaudible]

Speaker 4:

no, exactly.

Speaker 2:

For ages and that normal person, you know,

Speaker 4:

they're back with a bang. Um, just, uh, wrapping up now, like I always ask my garden designers if it, you know, it could be your garden you've already designed, but I want you to describe to me your dream garden space. So it could be something you already have or something you would aspire to have or you would inspire, aspire to create, and also what you drink while you're there. But I think I remember you don't drink, do you?

Speaker 2:

No.[inaudible] would be my dream.

Speaker 4:

Okay. So T's your drink of choice. Can you describe to me your fantasy garden please?

Speaker 2:

Um, five or six acres and Landa

Speaker 4:

land, art

Speaker 2:

Lambda over ground in shapes, geometric shapes, all done in Perth.

Speaker 4:

Ooh.

Speaker 2:

And trees. I've done quite a few Landa things in the past for clients like hit singles. They're very punchy, very simple and know people catch onto it very quickly. Where the light very strong. I personally like very strong structural spaces. What is, I do a lot of my clients but that I don't think most of them had a choice.

Speaker 4:

Well they kind of know what they're getting when they're employing. You don't know. You really know. They don't really have much of a choice

Speaker 2:

because what[inaudible] said, she wanted me to design the gov but she didn't want to see, she wanted me to do solid. It can be to the contract, but you still with me.

Speaker 4:

Oh that's the best. That is the best client that pay for it. And they'd give you free reign. Love that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I didn't actually get to say that with any clients really fancy by eight. It really was.

Speaker 4:

But do you know what? I think that's so true. So if all the design shows I work on are Eve, you know, I always say, you know, you've got to crack an egg to make an omelet. And if, if a, if a homeowner or you know, a client is watching you rip something apart, that's when it looks rubbish. You know what I mean? So it's kind of worth, that's when all the get cold feet. So I think it's best for them just to turn up at the end. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

they sound really bad, Butch. Sure. The client has an opinion because they're not qualified

Speaker 4:

now it's true.

Speaker 2:

So if you have a client that goes, you've put circles or you put these, yeah, quite lots of square. 10 or qualified to size. So let me get on with it. It's like I got visited by[inaudible] and I sit there for three hours and he draws whatever he wants.

Speaker 4:

Oh really?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I have no say I haven't any money in keeping.

Speaker 4:

Do you do, do you not even give them a theme? Do you know what I mean? Give him a, an idea of what you want?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I don't go to, he does what? He likes the allowance to get up the pocket on one occasion, which I thought was really funny. I actually went to say, not even daily where he was going to tattoo me. Yeah. Quarter of a third of a back piece.

Speaker 4:

That is amazing. Well on that. No, on that, on that crazy note, there's me, I, you know, I've worked on tattoo fixers and all these shows and I haven't got a single tattoo only because I think I, I, I, I've got too much of a control freak about me. I'd like, I'd plan it and then if it wasn't exactly how I wanted it, I'd go insane. So, um,

Speaker 2:

yeah.[inaudible]

Speaker 4:

I know he's[inaudible].

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it got to a guy who does black and gray. I like black and dry added water boards all over the country for his stuff, for needing love patterns and shapes. So I said[inaudible]. Yeah.

Speaker 4:

[inaudible] well that's brilliant. Well, on that note, Alan is been an absolute joy speaking to you. If people want you to find you on social media, your, is it, Twitter's your main thing.

Speaker 2:

I'm on Twitter and Instagram as autistic girl.

Speaker 4:

I was autistic honor. And it's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you. And thank you once again for chatting to the TB carpenter.

Speaker 2:

My pleasure.

Speaker 1:

What they call guy and inspirational friend. He's, he's my, uh, go-to person. I'll be out and about and I'll see an amazing plant. I'll quickly take a picture of it and then I would, um, tweet him, message him, say, Alan, what's this or, and he'll answer straight away. So if you have any garden information you want, he's the person you should contact. Look up. Look my font on Twitter. He's really active on Twitter, such an inspiring man and great fun to be around. How at you enjoyed that interview? Now that's it. We're coming to the end. Don't forget you can get your 15% discount by contacting thorn down at[inaudible], down.co. Dot. UK and typing in the code, the TV carpenter. I look forward to speaking to you next week. I've got some exciting guests coming up and I'll be able to tell you more about the ideal home show, hopefully. And all that's left for me to say is, thank you for listening to the TV carpenter.

Speaker 5:

[inaudible].