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A. very kindly indulged me today, to the tune of driving me down to New Malden to pick up a folding ramp for using with the Tramper, which I got on eBay for the princely sum of £83.20 as opposed to its price of £605 ex-VAT new. (Which is most of a week's PIP, but given that this sort of thing is Exactly What It's For I will somehow cope.)
So given that we were in Malden with a car, we headed over to Kew via Richmond Park and a mildly fascinating public house Experience. Whereupon A. accompanied me around the orchid festival, and also Rebecca Louise Law: Life in Death. Orchid festival: I was less impressed than I have been in previous years, which might be because I've acclimatised to this specific spectacle or might be because this iteration was in memoriam of the previous organiser. Or because it was hideously crowded and moving around was difficult, WHO KNOWS, but I was excited at A about various Crassula and lithops, and showed him the turtle, and nonetheless I enjoyed a bunch of the flowers.
Life in Death was very much My Kind Of Nonsense; here's TimeOut compiling a bunch of Instagram photos and utterly failing to give image descriptions, and here's House and Garden giving slightly more description. To my intense frustration the path was narrow enough to be strictly single file, so you were forced through at a sufficiently rapid pace to not feel guilty about holding up the people behind you; it was beautiful and intricate and I'd like to go back at a point when there's fewer people and just sit and inhabit it for a bit. I was getting glimpses of things organised by... cultivation? colour? -- but I wasn't managing to put any of it together. Some of the garlands were soliflore; I particularly enjoyed the star anise and the agapanthus for their colours and density, and the enormous structural soliflore garlands for their beautiful architectural use of space. I adored the Short Garlands hung above the path, but kept forgetting to look up. I loved the mixed garlands that evoked the edges of fields in spring.
Highly recommended, price of entry is included in entry to the gardens, if it sounds like your kind of thing and you want to organise a trip with me (before it closes in mid-March...) I'd be happy to take you in for free. Offer is good for up to two people at once.
Also, there was pineapple-and-lemongrass upside-down pandan-coconut cake, and I was very pleased.
(When we got in, A very reasonably curled up on the sofa under a blanket and went thoroughly to sleep, whereupon I periodically patted him gently on the head while getting the vacuuming done. All round excellent day, would recommend.)
So given that we were in Malden with a car, we headed over to Kew via Richmond Park and a mildly fascinating public house Experience. Whereupon A. accompanied me around the orchid festival, and also Rebecca Louise Law: Life in Death. Orchid festival: I was less impressed than I have been in previous years, which might be because I've acclimatised to this specific spectacle or might be because this iteration was in memoriam of the previous organiser. Or because it was hideously crowded and moving around was difficult, WHO KNOWS, but I was excited at A about various Crassula and lithops, and showed him the turtle, and nonetheless I enjoyed a bunch of the flowers.
Life in Death was very much My Kind Of Nonsense; here's TimeOut compiling a bunch of Instagram photos and utterly failing to give image descriptions, and here's House and Garden giving slightly more description. To my intense frustration the path was narrow enough to be strictly single file, so you were forced through at a sufficiently rapid pace to not feel guilty about holding up the people behind you; it was beautiful and intricate and I'd like to go back at a point when there's fewer people and just sit and inhabit it for a bit. I was getting glimpses of things organised by... cultivation? colour? -- but I wasn't managing to put any of it together. Some of the garlands were soliflore; I particularly enjoyed the star anise and the agapanthus for their colours and density, and the enormous structural soliflore garlands for their beautiful architectural use of space. I adored the Short Garlands hung above the path, but kept forgetting to look up. I loved the mixed garlands that evoked the edges of fields in spring.
Highly recommended, price of entry is included in entry to the gardens, if it sounds like your kind of thing and you want to organise a trip with me (before it closes in mid-March...) I'd be happy to take you in for free. Offer is good for up to two people at once.
Also, there was pineapple-and-lemongrass upside-down pandan-coconut cake, and I was very pleased.
(When we got in, A very reasonably curled up on the sofa under a blanket and went thoroughly to sleep, whereupon I periodically patted him gently on the head while getting the vacuuming done. All round excellent day, would recommend.)