It can be a little tricky to see what this picture actually shows, but if you look carefully, you will see the Cutty Sark in the background. Here we are, fixing up the compacted lawns and laying new turf for idverde by the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. It's chilly work in January, but actually, it's quite a good case study of the care needed by hard-worn turf between seasons.

For this project, we first de-compacted the lawns using a vertidrainer with solid tines, to a depth of 8” in two directions. Then we used a Koro Field Top Maker over the surface to remove any existing vegetation. Next, we spread 70/30 rootzone to top dress the lawns and fill any low spots, and finally, laid 5,580 square metres (which is nearly the surface area of a standard football pitch) of Big Roll Grasslands Rysport turf.

Dear old Cutty Sark - one of the very last tea clippers, built in 1869, had a good run until 1922, when the steamship really had taken over, then used for training until 1954, since when she has been laid up at Greenwich. And now she sails the Rysport turf, forever heading North along the meridian.

Yesterday, I went to London to view the Islington Square development, where we are supplying intensive roof substrate to Scotscape for the fabulous roof gardens planned for this luxury development.

There was quite a lot of waiting involved in the day's events. I made it for 9am, as planned, but Drew got stuck in traffic and so, after hanging around outside the main gate for a while, I went to a nearby caff to warm up a bit. It was about +4 and this, combined with a really mean easterly straight from Siberia, made the streets of North London unusually grim. It was inevitable that, at the very moment I got my coffee, Drew should call and say he was nearly there.

So I went back to the gate and got some nice pictures of an articulated Steward's lorry arriving with lots of (old design) bulk bags. Had a nice chat with the driver while we were both waiting - the site management wouldn't let the lorry in until 11.30, although this wasn't what the driver had been told. Then Drew turned up and we needed to go round to the other gate, where we eventually were let in and met with Jozsef, our cheerful Russian friend from Scotscape. He took us up on the roofs of two of the development blocks and showed the plans. These will be super flats with views over the City in one direction and Hampstead in the other. The top-floor apartments will have individual gardens, each with endless swimming pools (i.e., fairly small ones with a turbine to keep a constant water flow for you to swim against) and with stunning views. Scotscape are making the gardens and, among other amazing statistics, these will include 600 linear metres of hedging.

It was cold on that roof, as you can perhaps see from the photo. Once the lorry was allowed in and the bags were being unloaded by crane from the yard up to one of the roofs, I shot a quick video and then we got out of the wind as fast as the semi-finished stairways would allow us. Drew and Jozsef went on to the now almost finished Vista development in Battersea, but I had my own driving and delivery job scheduled for the afternoon, so said cheers to Drew and до свидания to Jozsef.

The photo shows the Great Room at Grosvenor House shortly before the lunch started. it was all very elegantly laid out and, though there must have been something like 1200 people there, there was adequate space for everybody.

The awards were of course what everybody was there for, and we were very pleased that One Tower Bridge won the Grand Award - the "Best in Show" prize. It is an amazing project too, and we are proud to have supplied our products via Scotscape. As these things tend to do, the ceremony did rather drag on. The presenter was Stephanie McGovern, a well-known TV presenter (apparently - but then I don't watch TV!). She did have some trouble holding the attention of the crowd, as the procedure trundled on, but it would have been an impossible task for anybody, as the temperature rose and drink was being drunk. Everybody should get their time in the limelight, but if there were any way of speeding up the presentation of the awards, that would be the single improvement that would make a big difference to the event.

The food was nicely presented and well prepared, but not that inspiring, perhaps (difficult with 1200 guests though). There was a decent amount of drink available and we enjoyed that! The prices in the bar afterwards are, well, London prices... need I say more?

Overall, the organisation can't be faulted. Everything worked smoothly, the catering and security staff did their jobs unobtrusively and there was never any real crush. People were generally well-behaved and I think we all left with feelings of goodwill towards humankind in general and BALI in particular - a good thing at this time of the year!