Holiday Gardentimes - part 1 Kew Garden Wanderings

While my weekend was smilingly wonderful, including a sweet farewell to an old home, Monday proved to be woefully dismal and today was no better. From missing a funeral due to getting absolutely lost, to policy decisions enacted from on high that will grossly affect the quality of my education, these were a couple of days I might wish to erase from memory. However, to put a positive spin on the latter stages of today I thought it a good time to start my holiday garden posts. This first one will highlight my adventures in Kew Gardens. So many lovely photos taken here, and so little time to include them all. But I will do my best ...

Kew Gardens, where do I start? Despite living 20 minutes walk from here in 2004 I never managed to visit it. This was pre-garden obsession I guess and Richmond park or the pub was closer. Upon returning to London in 2010 it was the first and virtually only thing on my itinerary (apart from the conference.) I spent an entire day here soaking up the sights, getting mildly sunburned and taking many photos. The old camera wouldn't have coped,but to the new camera a hundred or so photos was merely a blip on the radar of the memorycard.

This post will focus on the outside highlights of the day (and as usual I have vitually no idea what half of them were, they were just visually spectacular at the time.) The next post will delve inside the conservatories (where I took most of my shots) and will detail my illusive search for the vanilla plant. But for now, here's the outside floral gems:

Apart from the floral life there is also the wild life. I sat down to have a drink of water on a seat near the lake, and chatted with a few of the ducks

and this fellow with big feet

and the swans

and then I turned to my right, only to be confronted by an up close and almost personal encounter with this peacock.

There is also the statuesque wild life

Next holiday post I will show the photos from inside the conservatories, environments so diverse and wonderful. Plus each time I went inside it was so hot that venturing outside into the 30 degree heat was a welcome relief.