Monday 31 January 2011

A beautiful day!

We have had another cold snap here with night time temperatures below zero and days getting to the dizzy heights of only a few degrees.  It was actually zero at midday on Saturday!  Yesterday was a beautiful winter's day here in London.  It was cold, but gloriously sunny.  We headed off to Kew gardens for the final use of our 12 month passes.  Initially we were going to visit the open day for the herbarium, but the tours finished at 2:30 and by the time we got there it was too late.  Not to worry we still had a lovely time wandering around the gardens.


We came across this beautiful old Corsican Pine.  It was planted in Kew Gardens in 1814 and is said to be the oldest tree of its type in the country!  It has been struck by lightening several times and even hit by a small aircraft and is still standing...how's that for staying power!  Most importantly, note the beautiful blue sky through the tree's canopy!  Lovely, especially when Saturday would have won an award for the greyest of days!

In one of the glass houses we spotted this wonderful piece of art work.  He is a model of a hummingbird moth and is made of wood:


.... gorgeous isn't he!

Another arty thing we came across was this:






... and this was hanging inside:


We also discovered this fabulous tree which, from this angle makes me think of one of Tolkien's Ents!:



...and honestly it had the most fabulous gnarly, overhanging, yet gracefully pendulous branches.  ...and would you believe I can't remember what it was!

School's going well!  Only three more weeks and we are on our half term holiday....then hi ho, hi ho it's off to Athens we go!!  Have a great week everybody!

2 comments:

Coralie said...

The temple of imagination looks delightful. Is is a participation thingy or just a look at thingy? Wow... those gnarly trees are great...
awful cyclone still underway inland... no bananas AGAIN! no loss of life at this point so thats a bonus!
love Coralie

Ali said...

Hi Coralie, I don't think it was a participation thing...I think it was employed artists....not 100% sure though! The trees are fabulous and look absolutely brilliant at this time of year.

Sounds like Aus is still copping a beating....floods in Victoria now and fires in Perth! Parts of Townsville have only just got their power back after the cyclone! What a land ours is!!