Diary of a Scotch gardener at the French court at the end of the eighteenth century

the long version

It's brill? It's a wonderful Scottish Georgian landscaper's travelogue written with some angst his to-and-fro from England to revolutionary France exclaiming and petitioning the wherewithal of this gardenening fellow's vying with other 'earth movers' to pretty-up vistas viewed through tall picture-window-sashes that aristocrats alone had the nerve to implant in and on their estates. And, poor gardener Blaikie with soiled fingernails spends years of endeavour endeavouring to grab, clasp, and claw back that which is due to him for his Georgian gardening and landscaping toil. On the way he comes across a Marie Antoinette balding and toothless on her way to a head-to-head with Madame Guillotine.