In which we walk, eat well, and walk some more.
Not a great sleep.
Hmmm. Almost everyone has a story about their room in the new hotel, and one couple whose room was reportedly filthy have packed up to move today. Two have already moved rooms. Alison’s heating was NOT fixed yesterday, so she reported it again today. My safe wasn’t working, and after the “engineer” tested it and got the same error message on trying to lock it (surprise!), said he would be back later to replace the safe. I asked what to do with the valuables meantime, could I put them in a safe at the front desk and the reply was “no, just leave them somewhere in the room”. ?????? Fortunately they came back before I left, and unfortunately they came back before I left – as they were working in the hall right outside the bathroom, blocking passage during the replacement while I was trying to get ready to leave for the day…. at least I had somewhere safe to put my passports before I left.
Buffet breakfast is not up to Tunbridge Wells standards…. ugh, the coffee here too is undrinkable, so Alison and I nipped around the corner to Cafe Nero before we left, to supplement the instant I had drunk earlier.
Short drive to Kew Gardens, and our new tour guide Kim was full of useful information enroute, as a tour guide should be (hint, hint, “study leader” Gary). We unloaded at the Elizabeth Gate and were let loose with our maps. We had the whole day at Kew, with pre-ordered lunch at noon, and it was forecast to be up to 22C today; the sun came out fairly quickly.
We scattered from the gate into the usual groups, and we spent the day exploring (not necessarily in order):
- the Palm conservatory (interesting building from Victorian times, quite an architectural triumph):
We went up a quintessential Victorian staircase to the viewing platform and every step the temperature increased noticeably. Quite an amazing collection though.
The lovely staircase up
2. The waterlily building (fabulous Victoria lillies like the ones I saw in Guyana):
and these amazing ones with variegated leaves:
3. The Princess Diana conservatory: (multiple different growing zones from stone plants that were tiny and resembled rocks in an arid environment, to exuberant tropical growth in very hot and humid climes)
the carnivorous plant room; way more exotic than our pitcher plants, and varying in size from tiny to these sizes in a myriad of forms
4. the rock garden:
(dome from the alpine garden in background)
Convolvulus
Romulea
5. the alpine garden….
delicate forms of columbine and others reduced in size in a harsher environment
compact but still very colourful
Throughout we were accompanied by school groups with loud kids (whatever happened to “be quiet when you’re there, please?” though it was good to see them having fun and engaged).
There was an installation called “the Hive” which has up to 1000 LED lights which light up in response to the activity of bees in a monitored hive at the gardens; the one thousand LED lights glow according to the vibrations of bees that are currently active. In the background, music sound is played in response to the amount of activity in the key of C, which is the key that bees have been shown to communicate in (shouldn’t it be in the key of B?). Very innovative, but unfortunately also inhabited when we visited by a class of green pinnied youngsters diving and sliding over the floor in great glee and enthusiastic voice.
We had an amazing lunch at the botanical conservatory cafe at noon, beautifully presented and delicious, a lovely interlude in the walking.
We had had to pre-order our dishes several days ago, a process that was quite hilarious as Lynn struggled to pin us down to selections and had to repeatedly list the options…
cauliflower soup
pumpkin with quinoa
The dessert, for our selection a blood orange sorbet with chocolate mousse was a lovely juxtaposition of dark rich chocolate with sharp citrus. Definitely have to try that, and maybe with a bergamot sorbet ?
After lunch we set off to see more and wear off the calories just imbibed! Alison and I visited the temperate conservatory which is actually larger than the Palm conservatory and houses plants that can’t survive < 10C;
then headed out to the treetop walk, and of course the rose garden:
thank you to the tourists who chatted forever in front of this bed and finally moved out of the frame…
I love that most of the roses are traditional tea roses with lovely scents;
Pink rose; evidence of aphids here too, obviously a widespread problem
Throughout the gardens there were attractive climbing structures for all kinds of plants.
and then to the bamboo forest via a lake crossing;
We sat down on a bench to consider our next move and had a chat with some Canada Geese, who suddenly became quick agitated and talkative, the reason being an upcoming visit from a foe, the fox:
The bamboo forest was replete with multiple types of carefully contained islands of bamboo and some lovely gingko varieties:
We saw a mother deer and fawn in this area as well but they were too shy to be photographed.
There are many magnificent trees providing shade, including this lovely Moroccan cedar. I remember going to Kew with a picnic lunch and book many times in the past and selecting a spot in the shade they provided.
Finally, on the way back we swung around to Kew Palace to see the Queen’s gardens behind, and a wedding photography session out front
formal gardens in the rear
borders
laburnum tunnel, photo courtesy of Alison McWalter – just to prove I was actually there!
magnificent peonies
There might have also been a cup of coffee or two in there (pretty awful but containing caffeine), and a visit or two to gift shops.
We met back at the Elizabeth gate at 5:30 p.m. and thankfully piled onto the bus for the return to the hotel – 12 km or so of walking and we came nowhere near to seeing everything. What can you say – Kew Gardens are fabulous!
Fortunately Alison’s room heating is finally fixed, and we dashed out for fortifications for lunch for the Chelsea Flower show visit tomorrow before lowering our tired bodies into a hot bath to soak some fairly tired muscles…