Did They See The Queen Mum?

Priscilla Portenier still dragged from jet lag when she filled two shopping carts at Eagle Hardware and Garden 10 days ago.

She’d returned from England aching to transform her yard into a lush country garden with wisteria dripping from window boxes, peeking through piled rocks and climbing trellises of willow sticks.

“Everything there (in England) is big,” she says weakly, as if she had no choice but to fill the back of her truck with gardening supplies.

Inspiration was exactly what Priscilla and 29 other master gardeners hoped to bring home after 10 spring days in England. Lindsey Shocklee delivered the goods.

Lindsey is a travel agent with Travel Management Inc. She’s from Oxford and is as English as tea and crumpets. When she lived in Oxford, she arranged for foreign students to study at the prestigious university there.

Now she lives in Coeur d’Alene.

Last year, she asked North Idaho College’s alumni association if teachers might like to visit Oxford. The idea evolved into a garden tour off England’s trampled tourist path.

“I wanted to show people the parts of England no one knows about,” she says. “I want them to feel like visitors, not tourists.”

Lindsey took 30 travelers to London, then south to the sea and the Isle of Wight. They inhaled the heady mix of fragrances at the world-renowned Chelsea Flower Show and tested an imposing hedge labyrinth at the 10th century Leeds Castle in Kent.

But their finest moments came at Rotherfield Park, the private estate of Sir James and Lady Scott. The Scotts invited the group into their grand 16th century home for tea, then took them on a tour of the carefully landscaped grounds.

“We could easily have been in `Pride and Prejudice’ or `Sense and Sensibility,”’ says traveler April Muhs. The Scott estate was used in the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

“I thought how fun it would be to have gardens like that and be the one in charge: `George, I need you to prune the potatoes,”’ she says, with a royal wave of her arm.

Motivation supplanted weariness as the group returned home. Betty Schmehl immediately pruned her lilacs and built a scalloped fence from the shoots, just as she’d seen in England. Erna Rhinehart trimmed her bamboo and April pulled out her watercolors.

The tour netted the alumni association $2,500 for scholarships and even left Lindsey glowing.

“I loved seeing my country from their perspective,” she says. She’s already planning next year’s tour to France. “Everyone said it was great, and that was nice.”

Bolstering the Bolstads

Remember Dean and Betty Bolstad? They’re the Post Falls couple struggling to survive while Betty fights multiple sclerosis and Dean cares for her round-the-clock. After Dean closed his popular car-repair shop to help Betty, they’ve lived on $516 a month.

Friends and North Idaho neighbors have rallied to help the Bolstads. They’ve opened a fund for donations at Washington Trust Bank, 1601 E. Seltice Way, Post Falls, 83854.

Lutheran Brotherhood Panhandle Branch has pledged to triple the first $1,000 contributed. Sheila Bledsoe, who opened the fund, says the idea is to help the Bolstads dent their mounting debts and enable them to pay for in-home care for Betty. Then Dean could return to work.

For details or ideas for other efforts, call Sheila at 773-1387.

Welcome to North Idaho

If it’s raining, it must be June in North Idaho. No wonder so many kids attend out-of-state colleges…

What did your college students miss most last year? Keep it short for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID, 83814; FAX to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.