This amusing dandelion was growing out of the stone wall of the inside of the ruined Corfe Castle in Dorset. A fantastic place with a great steam train ride to Swanage from an old school station. It was a very grey and miserable day, but great fun.
Another picture from the delightful gardens of Sanssouci near Potsdam in Germany. This is the bubbling spurt of a small fountain, up close.
This is a shot looking into a small building in the grounds of Sanssouci, an absolutely delightful palace and gardens in Potsdam that we visited as a day trip from Berlin a few years ago. I like the composition and the way the light from the stained glass window falls across the stairs. I think I was poking my lens through the bars across a window from outside at the time.
Another quick photo from my trip to Waddesdon Manor. This is the Rubber Tree, constructed entirely from old rubber tyres. Nice concept!
We went to meet some friends for lunch and a wander at Waddesdon Manor, a National Trust property near Aylesbury, about halfway between us in St Albans and them in Birmingham. We're all NT members so it's completely free to park and get in!
It's a bit of a strange place in that it's one of the most opulent and well looked after NT houses I've been to. Perhaps there is some private money in play too – courtesy of the Rothschild's – that web link above is not a National Trust website, though they have their own page on the place as well. Strange.
We didn't explore that much of it this time (we've been there once before) since we had our friends' giggling young one in tow. But we did see the front garden (driveway, grass, trees, sadly dry fountain) and the back (mountainous flower-beds and pleasant water features overlooking distant countryside – see pictures) and the inside (no photos allowed) and the Stables for lunch.
Last time we visited, we ate in the fancy kitchen restaurant and I had the most wonderful duck ever, along with a cracking glass of red. This time we went for the family option in the Stables restaurant and though the service was a bit slipshod and the glasses dirty, the food was really surprisingly good.
The missus had the brilliant idea of going to see England play at Wembley, so we did just that yesterday! It's quite a slick operation, as you'd hope, with the tube and the venue doing an impressive job of getting 90,000 fans to and from the game. In fact the Jubilee line tube we left on was only half-full as the old bridges at the station just can't deliver people to the platform fast enough. Still, it only took about 30 mins to get from our seat into a tube.
I was shocked and I suppose only mildly amazed that there was no beer for sale in the venue. I'd assumed that you wouldn't be allowed it in the bowl itself, but that it would be available in the concourses. And yes, there were the signs, proudly proclaiming "Pie and a pint", "Cold Beer here" etc. But when I asked I was laughed at. I did later spot a small sign saying that UEFA had decreed that this is the way it must be, but it's just harsh to advertise beer everywhere whilst not serving any. The tickets and FA website didn't make any mention of it either, that I could see. How very uncivilised.
That said, it was the least hostile atmosphere I've ever known at a football game, and the lack of beer is probably to thank for that. At no point did I even fear for my life! How very civilised.
The ticket made it VERY clear that cameras were strictly verboten, so with a heavy heart we didn't take any, which is shame because the new stadium is a fine photographic muse. That's why you have to do with a poor snap from my phone as we sat behind the goal. England scored all 5 into that goal in the second half, and the England Band (sponsored by Pukka Pies apparently) played about ten rows behind us. And in front of us sat a woman with a massive camera. In fact we appeared to be about the only people there without one. That's what you get for playing by the rules.
I really like this photo that I took in Lisbon a couple of years back, but I seem to be the only one. Still, it really sticks in my memory as an image for me. What do you think?
No, this is not really a BMW.
Almost every weekend this summer a trip to Kew Gardens has been on the cards, and finally we made it happen. We managed to pick a great day for it too – even wearing sunscreen for only about the second time this year. Having heard so much about the wonders of Kew we were really looking forward to it, but could it possibly live up to our expectations?
Getting There
Round the M25 and in on the M4 was easy enough but the signage ran out just when we got close and we spent twenty minutes trying to find the official parking. The pay and display machines in the long, slender car park mischievously require £5 in change, which means a long walk to the main ticket booth and back to the car, then back to the booth to actually enter the gardens if you’re unlucky. Nice.
And We’re In!
Once in, I had to reset my expectations a bit. The gardens consist mostly of flat lawns with trees and bushes and buildings scattered about. Not to mention so much goose poo that it was a struggle to sit down and eat our sandwiches. Ultimately it’s more of a park than a garden. I’d expected clever planting to supply riots of colourful flowers even at the tail end of a bad summer but the palette is mostly green and brown throughout . I’d also expected meticulous and dense themed gardens like those at Butchart, which overwhelm the senses with their majesty and detail, each turn revealing endless new delights. But all I found was a couple of rather weak attempts at Alpine and Japanese gardens. I think Kew is hampered by its topology – being on the banks of the Thames it’s pretty much entirely flat and there’s little artificial landscaping to make it more interesting.
Glass Houses
It’s just a whole different type of gardens to those that burst with exaggerated splendour from every angle. The best of the plants are kept indoors, under the panes of the still impressively huge old glasshouses. That said, they could do with a lick of paint – there’s a whiff of fading grandeur about them and it’d be a shame to see them gradually crumble away for lack of funds or effort. The hot and sweaty palm house and its temperate brother were nice, but lacking a certain something. I’ve certainly seen better, or maybe I’ve been spoiled elsewhere. The modern Princess Diana building is huge and has some quality sections (who doesn’t like a massive cactus) but you’ll have to put the effort in to see it all as the path endlessly diverges and there are several ways in and out. I’d much prefer a single path that leads me neatly through everything there is to see, but then I’m a simple sort. It was more than a little surprising to see a large iguana basking at the edge of the water-lily pond, apparently free to come and go as it pleased with no staff anywhere to be seen. Strange.
And Now, Your Main Feature…
I understand that the ten storey pagoda used to be a major feature and it looks striking from a distance, but up close it’s really very plain and peeling badly. The new hotness at Kew is the treetop walkway and its small underground atrium, or the “Rhizotron and Xstrata Treetop walkway” to use the proper and more than slightly over the top names. This is the new roller coaster in the theme park that is Kew Gardens, but the only sweat I broke was climbing the stairs. There is a lift, but it’s exclusively for the disabled. Except it was broken so they were sat at the bottom not knowing what they were missing. Lucky them.
I’ve never known something so expensive and so hyped to be so disappointingly dull. [Insert your own gag about the Millennium Dome here, but I never went.] The implementation is clinical but boring – all bare concrete and rusting, sorry ‘weathered’ steel. You climb the stairs, you walk the loop, looking at some sweet chestnut branches relatively close up and you come back down again. The only information up there is presented via small sculptural metal plaques that convey only about ten words each. Perhaps they didn’t want people to stop for long, so they can shepherd everyone through at speed and keep throughput up.
The only point of interest I remember from being up there was that it wobbled more than it looked like it should and the thin flooring flexed worryingly underfoot. In fact I’d stay a good distance away from any 40 stone leviathans that you might encounter up there (might being the operative word – it’s a long way up the staircase) lest the whole thing give way. I’m sure it’s structurally sound really, but if the majority of my interest is occupied by the feeling of uncertainty beneath my shoes then the whole expensive installation is a bit of a failure.
In Summary
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve griped endlessly here but I had a great day out and I’m glad I went. It’s just that it wasn’t what I expected and many of the star attractions fell frustratingly short of where they could and should have been. The place is huge and we saw a vast number of different things – many of them quite good, but very few excellent. I’d recommend it, but I’d want to set your expectations first.
This unassuming museum has been nearby all my life, but I’ve only just visited for the first time on the most recent bank holiday Monday. It’s hidden away off a lane near the M25 just South of London Colney, but the brown signage should you get you there as long as you realise the final turn really is into a single track lane seemingly heading off to nowhere. In fact it takes you pretty much through the front gardens of a set of delightful country houses complete with a huge mill pond and then into the small car park for the museum around a tight corner.
It’s rather hidden away and it doesn’t look like there’s much at first, beyond a few small and slightly dilapidated buildings. However we were there much longer than we expected – a couple of hours in fact – and were really impressed. The whole museum has an old world charm, partly because of the subject matter and partly because it’s clearly the pride and joy of a lot of volunteers who keep it running. There’s no slick commercialism here, but there’s something much better: a couple of old guys restoring 60 year old wooden warplanes amid thousands of artefacts in various states of disrepair, with some pretty decent labelling and narrative to explain it to you. The old guys will happily explain it to you directly if you engage them.
I’ve flown as a passenger in plenty of planes, but only very modern ones. It was particularly interesting to climb into the various old passenger planes to see what a flying traveller used to experience. Answer: great big comfy seats, crystal decanters, but not enough room to stand up and a toilet behind a curtain. The cockpits are quite fascinating too – all wires and pipes and switches.
Overall – a great museum that really impressed. Watch out for opening times though, and figure out where you’re going before hand! Check out the De Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre website.