Kew (again)
First up, I know that me going to Kew isn’t exactly news any more, I go at a bare minimum about three times a year, often more, but it’s always nice to show some photos.
This was my first trip to Kew in a while though, as I first mislaid my season ticket and then it ran out and I wasn’t going to renew as I knew we’d get our carers card soon and that meant free entry to Kew (amongst other things) for carers. So we finally got the card (about a week too late for our days out on during our staycation), so off we went.
It was also my first visit with my beloved iPhone, now I always like taking a camera around with me, but not so much so as to take my rather expensive 8MP camera, I’m happier using the camera on whatever phone I have (plus I’ve lost the memory card for the 8MP camera), but I think after switching from a camera, which ok was on a network with appalling customer service and didn’t actually do much (other than, um, make phone calls), the camera on it was really good, the iPhone camera on the other hand, not so good, so although I did take quite a few pictures today, most of them are either too dark or overexposed, they’re still serviceable, as in you can recognise what’s in them, they’re a record etc. etc. but not for this blog. So like I say, much as I’m virtually married to my iPhone, think I’m going to have to find that memory card so I can use my proper camera again!
Still, as you can see we got to see the Waterlily House, which thankfully is back to being the Waterlily House (last time we were there it was boarded over as an exhibition of orchids, I can take or leave orchids, but I do like my waterlilies. We also saw the Glass Houses which are the kids favourites and we went up the Treetop Walkway, where once again the lift was broken, so Boy Lacer had to walk all the way up to the top and then all the way down again, but it’s always lovely when you do get to the top, the horse chestnuts (I think?) were out in force this time. Then after a picnic lunch it was a trip to the soft play area, never my most favourite place, interestingly this time (for those that know Kew) the outside play area is now just a collection of muddy holes in the ground, there were signs out saying they were seeking funding for a new play area (which from the diagram looked quite good) and they said they’d hoped to have it built by late summer /Autumn, ummm no sign of building work, so I guess they haven’t got the money, which is a shame because at least the outside play area wasn’t as hot and stuffy as the indoor play area. However the indoor play area did have a bee hive this time, in a rather clever display where you could see the bees at work, for someone who has vague beekeeping fantasises, I quite liked that bit!
Then on the way home I made the ‘mistake’ of walking through their tiny garden shop and ended up coming out with six small herb pots and a rather large chilli plant for the, I think, quite the bargain price of £16 (the herbs together were £10 and the chilli plant loaded with chillies an even bigger bargain of £5.99). Some of my current herbs haven’t survived the season, the majoram (the one herb I never used) completely overwhelmed my herb planter, swamping and killing my thyme and then promptly died itself and my basil is determined to do nothing but flower, despite me keeping on pinching off the flower heads, so I have some more thyme, more basil, some parsley (which I had attempted, pretty unsuccessfully to grow from seed), apple mint, pineapple mint (I’m looking forward to some mint teas made with those) and umm something else I can’t remember right now, hopefully not more majoram! I haven’t brought any plants in a good while, so I don’t feel too bad, specially as all the profits from the Kew shops go towards conservation projects.
