Tags
Broad Walk, Gnomus, Heathrow Airport, Kew Gardens, leucospermum conocarpodendon, Pagoda, Palm House, Pyrenean Pine, Richmaond Lawn Tennis Club, Royal Botanic Gardens, Temperate House
Kew Gardens. This time Mary and I went together to Kew Gardens, known more formally as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. We arrived fairly early, after an obligatory coffee near the station, and decided to make straight for the Temperate House, recently reopened after refurbishment, before the crowds arrived. 
En route, a sideways look at the Pagoda. How parched the grass is.
It happened to be the first day of Gnomus’s residence there. He is ‘a font of knowledge, and caretaker of the earth’, hanging around the Temperate House to share with children special stories about the plants there, until the end of the summer holidays. 
As Mary pointed out, the poor chap at the back is having difficulty making the movements of Gnomus’s feet look realistic!
One corner inside. 
Views from the balcony.
Outwards
and inwards
From the balcony I also admired elements of the ironwork.
And ornamentation outside.
And I focussed on plants from above.
The story behind the leucospermum conocarpodendon below is interesting. In 2005, a Dutch researcher found 40 small packets of seeds in a leather notebook in the National Archives. The notebook belonged to a Dutch merchant whose ship was captured by the British navy in 1803. Kew’s Millenium Seedbank propagated this plant from one of those seeds. 
We moved on to the Great Pagoda, also recently refurbished. When it was built in 1762, it had dragons on every corner of its roof, but they only lasted until 1784. Thanks to donors, the original designs have been used to recreate the dragons, the lower ones carved from wood, the higher ones digitally printed. 
While Mary stayed down and worked on a crossword, I climbed to the top, 253 quite shallow steps. Access was by a broad central spiral staircase. I counted the steps between each floor, 33 to begin with, reducing to 21, so I suppose this was to give the impression, with perspective, that the tower is higher than it really is. Around the outside of the staircase is a broad landing in every floor, with considerate benches (that is a figure of speech!) on every second landing. At the top, the windows are glazed, and you cannot get out on to the balconies.
Richmond Lawn Tennis Club from the second floor. They’re only playing on the hard courts.
The Japanese Garden from the top
Central London skyline
There was a small exhibition on the ground floor. This automaton represents a royal visit to the Pagoda during construction
On our way to lunch:
The central section of The Temperate House gleamed in the sun
A different chap at the back has worked out what the handles on Gnomus’s calves are for.
The Palm House, now by comparison revealed to be in need of a clean-up
After lunch we wandered down the Broad Walk. 
Then around a parkland area.
I loved the bark on this deep-cleft Pyrenean Pine
We sat for a while, both working further on the crossword (my part really just marvelling at the solutions Mary found).
Like my small pond at home, the lake has far too much duckweed etc on it. A result of the extreme heat we have been having?
Aeroplane after aeroplane…
Close to a bench
Daddy swan seems much more concerned by the Egyptian goose than by us.
A speedy passage through the sweltering Palm House, 
and out the other side, 
back to the café to pick up something to drink. This we consumed sitting on a bench nearby, reflecting on the day, and counting the intervals between the planes which were going over our heads to land at Heathrow Airport (every 60 to 70 seconds, poor residents). 
A lovely day, during which sunshine and cloud had appeared at totally convenient intervals for our comfort. We parted at Kew Gardens station, I for my Underground (which was largely over ground) for Paddington Station and the West Country, and Mary on her Overground (which was partly under ground) for North London.
Take-off was imperceptible and we were up and away before we knew it.
At last some wild animals – running deer, tiny specks here.
We saw fields with patterns.
After some 50 minutes it was time to start descending. 
Once the balloon had deflated sufficiently we were allowed to get out.
We were invited/encouraged/cajoled to help push all the remaining air out of the balloon, then to roll it up and put it back in the basket. 
It was some time before a minibus arrived to pick us up. The interval was very pleasantly spent sipping champagne and chatting with fellow passengers. 
It had been worth the two-year wait! Thanks Geoff for kicking off the whole adventure! And 
Four people had died, and last time I was there a young man was awaiting trial. I learnt this time that he is now serving ten years’ imprisonment.
and examined this statue in its forecourt of 
And I noticed that the 
I then went to the café hoping to have a pastel de nata (custard tart), but had to settle for a large portion of just the custard itself. It was good! At the same time I watched the cable cars, and tried to see the mechanism by which the pods switched to another speed. 
Even once back in the cable car I failed miserably to do so, though I could feel the change of gear. 
The ride down was just as enjoyable, and there were no blue shirt reflections to mess up my pictures this time. The ride is so quiet you can hear birds!
Some of them accompanied us, or we them, back along the coast, 
and two landed on a beach. 
This final picture is of the celebrated 
As I would have been late meeting up with people I had arranged to eat with, I spent 7 euros on a taxi back up to the hotel, feeling guilty as I did so, but made up for a it later after a delicious meal, when once more, I trekked back up on foot with my friends.
The first exhibits were of mineral specimens. Eat your heart out, crystal shops of Glastonbury – my reflection gives an idea of the size of these. 
The rest were of a more reasonable size. 
(I took many, many photos throughout the museum, and could have taken many more. In this post are just a small selection of those I did take.)
You could stand on a metal plate which shook you as you watched a video, presumably taken on a web-cam, of the effects on an earthquake in a real home. The gentleman reading his paper at the outset left the house after a longer period than I would have put up with. Perhaps he was accustomed to minor earthquakes, and thought there was nothing to worry about. His exit when it did come was very hasty!
Each of the dragons has a ball in its mouth. The first one to fall into a frog’s mouth during an earthquake indicates its direction.
A huge area was given over to the exhibition of creatures by their classes, and explanations. There was a risk that this could have been a rather old-fashioned display, rows of animals pinned up behind windows, but it was so well presented that it worked. 
I confess that I failed to notice the blue lines indicating relationships in this exhibit, until I saw the photo. 
But there were several images on the screen at the end of the window, this one comparing homo sapiens with a gorilla. 
Upstairs, the next room linked together the geology of the inanimate with the evolution of the animate, geological period by geological period, with illustrations of how the tectonic plates were located at any particular time. I was beginning to flag by now, especially as I had not yet had any lunch, so did not give this the time I would have liked. Here are just a few of the maps of how the earth’s plates were at the given time, and even fewer of the fossil exhibits.
The museum would need several visits to do it justice.
I just whizzed through the last room, illustrating how living creatures function. 
If ever I have to spend another wet day in Toulouse, I know where I shall head!
I set off on another walk, which was planned to include some considerable time indoors. In fact the weather was not as appalling as had been forecast, and for most of my tour today I did not open my umbrella. I made my way down to the Cathédrale St-Etienne, 
which curiously was made up of two very different and offset parts, as can be seen from this plan,
I have to say, I was not particularly thrilled by this building, but perhaps the weather, which was not only damp but cold, was affecting my mood.
But I was delighted to find that around this waterfall 
was not just one family of ducks and recently hatched ducklings, 
but another with rather older ones. 
There was other wildlife in the park.
Looking backwards, shortly before I left the canalside, I was able to confirm that the water, as I had sensed, had indeed for a short while been above the level of my head. 
My walk took me past this commemorative statue, 
and to a bookshop to find a map for the second part of my trip.
She had warned me late in January that they had been experiencing temperatures in the eighties Fahrenheit (upwards of 26ºC) in her part of Los Angeles county. This had not lasted though, and my t-shirts were unnecessary. While it was sunny, there was a definite chill in the air, and locals found it cold.
It looked as if it might take us no time at all to walk around the lake, but Karina did not know just how long I can linger when looking at wildlife! (This time I had no wildlife expert or bird book to identify the birds we were seeing, so I have been hesitant in my labelling. One problem is that there can be American versions of Eurasian birds which look almost identical, c.f. ravens and magpies. Corrections and additions would be gratefully received.)
The evening was spent very pleasurably at the restaurant of an Irish pub, (I had fish and chips!) with three of Karina’s horsey friends. The talk was very little of horses and much of my Yellowstone trip, which I was delighted to recount.
I got interested in an American dipper (nothing like European ones) by a river
and I walked back a few yards to take a closer look.
Imagine my astonishment on turning round after a few minutes, at seeing this!
Of course any coyote likes an easy surface to walk on, and this one walked right on by me, and through my companions by the vehicles.
We next stopped to observe a young bison’s carcase being recycled, about half a mile from where we were on the road.
We were now technically out of the Park, but still well within the wider ecosystem of Yellowstone. I wandered around a little, while telescopes were being set up.
It was back to Mammoth for lunch, and a look at the Lower 
It was too fast a drive for any real photography, though I did manage to get these bald eagles.
We also saw white-tailed deer, and some bison, and I noticed a fabulous 
Approaching Bozeman I took a final picture of the mountains.
Our next stop, for ‘comfort’ purposes, was in yet another beautiful spot.
Then we pulled up again, when we saw a group of photographer tourists parked and looking upwards – at four sleeping coyotes, of which here are two.
She passed round a collar which had been round a wolf’s neck, and that felt quite spooky to me. It was pretty heavy, and we were reminded that the wolf is a very large animal, though it’s difficult to realise when you see them from a distance – IF ever we should see them, from a distance or no. No luck this morning and we made our way back to Cooke City for lunch, quite slowly as we kept seeing interesting things and stopping.
But the wolves had gone. ‘Hang on, there they are!’ the cry rang out from one of the leaders (now three as Tim from 
When we were at the furthest extent of There, Jeremy had a call to say that the road to Cooke City was now clear, an hour earlier even than hoped. Great! We could continue on our way!
In the course of this time in the Mammoth area we said goodbye to our faithful snow coaches, and reverted to 
And then it became too dark to take any more photos.
The amateur geologist in me was fascinated by the yellow stone (er… Yellowstone?) through which we were driving.
a spot called Mammoth Hot Springs. The road onward to Cooke City, where we were to spend the next two nights, had been blocked for two days…