March 29: The Saatchi Gallery

Today started off quite well. I got my Contemporary Britain paper back with a big old "A" on the front, which was wonderful. After lunch, I went with a friend to find the Saatchi Gallery, where our Museums class was meeting. We got horribly lost around Sloane Square but finally managed to find it. The gallery was...interesting. It's a modern art gallery, specializing in artworks that really challenge viewers and push the envelope in some way. Some of the works were interesting to me, and others were rather silly or even just stupid. I do not appreciate art created for the sole purpose of shock value. How is that supposed to be art?! Anyway, some things were neat, like the room filled with oil. Sounds weird, and it certainly was weird, but it was kind of fun to see. I also was interested by a very surreal exhibit that an artist had created using dead bugs. Yes, I did say dead bugs. She apparently collected the bugs from backyards and windshields, then strung them up inside a glass case (using horse hairs for some reason) as though they were flying through the air. Then, she fashioned little creepy humanoid-like figures out of tiny pieces of grass bulbs, stuck fly wings on them, and created a sort of battlefield between the dead bugs and the grass creatures. It was creepy as all heck and super strange, but it was actually less weird than some of the other pieces there, if you can believe it. I came home to cook some chicken and rice and green beans for supper, then settled down with my laptop to seriously look at some imported Japanese koi that I'm interested in. I'm torn between a doitsu (scale-less) kindai (mostly white) showa (black with red and white markings), and a doitsu kohaku (red and white). I'm not yet sure if I'll end up getting either of these, but I'm very tempted, especially because I probably won't be seeing many, if any, other Japanese tategoi (young koi) imports this year. Hmmm. It's such a tough decision! I've spent the rest of the night going through the hundreds of pictures I took at Kew Gardens and writing up my blog entry from Sunday. Now time to finish my tea and go to bed.

Creepy bug exhibit

Close-up of the bug war

Room filled with oil

I liked this painting because it seemed to be about pizza and didn't contain

anything rude or suggestive or gross or confrontational. And I'm quite fond of pizza!

March 28: Blithe Spirit

Today was a pretty normal day, mostly. I had a nice, relaxing morning, then went to theatre class, then came home and made dinner out of one of the instant rice meals Nana and Papa sent me awhile back and some chicken that I mixed in. It turned out to be a very nice supper. At 7:30, I went to Piccadilly Circus to see a Noel Coward show called "Blithe Spirit." It was a nice, light-hearted, comedic show. The basic plot was that a man doing research for a novel about the occult accidentally conjures up the ghost of his dead first wife with the accidental help of his second wife and a silly psychic. Since only he can see the first wife at first, this causes all sorts of trouble with his second wife, until the first wife discovers she can move objects around, thus making the conflict a whole lot worse. Long story short, the first wife accidentally kills the second wife hoping to kill the husband (so they could live in the spirit world together), so the poor guy has two ghost wives who are trapped and can't find their way back to the land of the dead. It was a hilariously funny show, and just what I needed after seeing several not-so-funny plays in the past few weeks. The actors were all quite well-known, especially the first wife, who was played by Ruthie Henshall, a musical theater actress I am quite familiar with, and the psychic, Alison Steadman, a popular British actress who I know best for being Mrs. Bennett in the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice. Altogether, it was a wonderful evening.

March 27: Kew Gardens!

Today was a fantastic day. I decided to go to Kew Gardens, even though I'll be going again in April with the rest of the program, because I just really wanted to see the magnolias and the daffodils and have some time to explore all on my own. It was heavenly. The gardens are huge, much bigger than I'd even expected. I got there around 11, and ended up staying till after 5. This would be a very, very long entry if I talked about everything I saw, so I'll try to just stick to the highlights.

When I got through the gates, the first thing I saw was an immense lake with a fountain, flanked by a pretty house, lots of carefully symmetrical flower beds, and a huge greenhouse. I, of course, made straight for the biggest, shiniest thing I could see: the greenhouse. This one had been built in the Victorian era to house the giant palm trees and other tropical specimens that were being brought back to Britain from India and other parts of the British Empire. It was separated by region, so I walked through Eastern Asia, the Near East, South America, Central America, Australia, and lots of other places.

Oldest potted plant in the world, was brought to Kew in 1773

Jade Vine, Strongylodon macrobotrys, from the Philippines

Aphelandra sinclairiana, Central America

Giant palm from South America, the biggest plant in the Palm House

Bromeliad

In the Water Lily House

I went into another greenhouse called the "Temperate House," where they grow plants that need a bit of extra warmth but aren't quite tropical. It was spectacular!

Iris japonica

Rhododendron macgregoriae

Pretty koi pond

I'm very worried that this will be my fish Miles in a few years...

Uh oh! It was as long as my arm and massive!

Aeonium undulatum, Canary Islands

Really nifty unlabelled Amaryllis. Mom, we may need to find one like this.

Baby's breath growing over a tree...Mom, let's see if we can do something like this

Date palm tree. Ummm, oops. Well, on the bright side, I bet it took a long time to get that big, so we're probably good for a few more decades, Mom.

This settles it. We are getting a yellow Clivia. Soon!

...though I still love the classic orange.

Then I decided it was time for lunch, so I searched for a bench in the sun. During my quest, I stumbled across a peacock taking a dust bath under a tree. Roaming around outside was wonderful. The little birds were singing their heads off and the sun was shining and it was just lovely. I was paying particular attention to the magnolias, since we're currently trying to decided which one we want to plant at home.

My peacock friend

The famous pagoda

Flowering Quince. I'm so jealous!

Japanese Garden

Peacock #2. This one got chased off by Peacock #3.

Magnolia "Leonard Messel." This one had lots of pink but not a very strong fragrance.

Peacock #4

Oh, so pretty...

...but then he picked a fight with a goose...

...it got ugly!

Sleepy goosey

Rhododendron arboreum 'Gloxinaeflorum'

Helleborus

Magnolia "Charles Rafill." Loved the huge pink flowers, but no way would it grow by us.

Another giant-flowered favorite.

Nesting Indian Ringneck...I find them EVERYWHERE

Magnolia

Magnolia "Kobus"

I LOVED this one! Magnolia "Phelan Bright"

Fields of Chionodoxa

Happy day!

Kew Palace

Magnolia stellata. See, Mom, it just doesn't have the oomph we need.

Bird of Paradise

I like how they keep the tree upright. Looks like something Agee would rig.

Tulip "Love Song." We need to get some!

China Rose

Then came the Rock Garden and Alpine Garden areas...OH MY GOODNESS!!! Absolutely wonderful. The Alpine Garden was inside a little but very specialized greenhouse. It was very tall, apparently something to do with drying out and cooling down the air, and also large pipes that pumped cool, dry air directly onto the little plants. Someday, I want my own!

Little miniature Trillium!

I want one!

I liked this. It was like miniature Silver Mound Artemisia

Techophilaea cyanocrocus. AMAZING!!! As blue as a gentian!

I love Spurge so much!

Inside the Princess of Wales Greenhouse: LOTS more tropicals:

Kohleria spicata

Jungle!

Cereus stenogonus: Looks a heck of a lot like ours. I would bet

that's what it is, Mom. We should make it a label before we forget.

Giant, friendly puffer in a display pond. He was such a fun fishy.

Pitcher plant flower

Waterlily

Pretty Lady's Slipper. Wish they had labelled the orchids.

SOOO jealous of the Vandas. Someday I will be able to keep these.

Orange Cattleya

Some kind of Dendrobium. I really wish they had labelled these.

I WANT a Cymbidium like this. Mom, we need to look for one of these.

It was such a pretty, different  shade of green, and I loved the contrast.  

Hereroa tugwelliae, in the desert area

Helen's favorite Crown Imperials were blooming all over. I was so jealous.

The Palm House

At the end of a lovely day

I so wish I could have taken some of these home!

Like, really. There were so many and they were so nice. It was torture!

Stripey Camellia for Mom

The gift shop had some truly amazing plants and seeds for sale. I was just in pain knowing that I couldn't take any home with me. Then I saw that they had Thompson and Morgan brand double annual poppies, which I can't get in the States because it's a British company and apparently they can't ship "opiates" overseas so I've always wished I could sneak some home. Hopefully they'll make it back ok and we'll have some really nice poppies in the garden this year! I just couldn't resist. I was just about dead by the end of the day. I had such a nice time, but my feet were shot. I stumbled home to a Cornish pasty for dinner and finished up some homework, then re-wrote a few of my 2011 garden lists.