The Queen's Garden

This nature documentary is devoted to the Queen's garden at Buckingham Palace. A fine mixture of garden and woodland, this green oasis in the middle of a busy city offers shelter and food to a large variety of animals. There, one meets both the common (sparrows, crows, ducks) and the uncommon (pink flamingoes). Filmed with a great deal of patience and competence, the documentary offers many splendid nature scenes such as the courtship ritual of the wolf spider or the "birth" of an air-borne dragonfly.

The garden is also a workplace where specialists devote themselves to that most British of arts, gardening. Every inch of the domain is lovingly cared for, ranging from the historic memorial trees to the artfully "forgotten" corners filled with old statues. And of course one also catches glimpses of the other people living or working there : policemen going about their beat, the sovereign playing with her corgis, guardsmen preparing for a ceremonial march.

If I were lucky enough to own a paradise like that, I'd spend the whole of my days there, and the outside world be damned...

Lovely and restful, like a summer holiday.