roses
Jo Thompson: listen to the savour session
For the uninitiated, savour sessions are a means of offering a way of savouring together, in real time. Some involve writing workshops in the best-kept secrets in London, others have been intimate book events with cocktails, and then there are the ones like Jo’s: a good chat. The one thing that unites them is that tickets for paying members are entirely free.
Earlier in the summer, back when we thought that summer wasn’t coming this year, I hosted the first-ever online savour session with garden designer
. I’m a big fan of Jo on several levels: she was pioneering in creating Chelsea Flower Show gardens with all-female teams (who she paid - something that is still, somehow, revolutionary even now) as a single mother, when children weren’t allowed on site. She makes beautiful gardens that manage to be equally accessible and inspiring and she’s generous with her knowledge in an industry that can keep gates. , her newsletter, continues to astound me with its offering and community. Needless to say, I was chuffed when she agreed to do an savour session with me a couple of months ago.For the uninitiated, savour sessions are a means of offering a way of savouring together, in real time, where access for members is entirely free. Some involve writing workshops in the best-kept secrets in London, others have been intimate book events with cocktails, and then there are the ones like Jo’s: a good chat.
I asked Jo to share her notes on the delicious things in life: what she likes to savour. But while we heard about that (roses, designing gardens in cosy armchairs, getting lost in Italian cities, having friends over for drinks), we also learned about the hard-won lesson of taking a break, what it’s really like to live in Venice part-time and the essence of creating a magical garden.