Queueing at Kew

So it has been a few weeks since I wrote on this blog this has mainly been due to the lack of internet whilst moving house but now i'm back and back online.

So...what have I done this week that could be classed as creative. Well this week my parents came visiting and we went on a trip to Kew Gardens. Firstly the place 'Kew Gardens' is a lovely little place feeling like a quaint English village whilst still being on the district line. The florists, butchers (with homemade pork pies), the fish and chip shop and the railway pub only added to this feel. On arriving at the gardens after being amused by the fact we were 'queueing at kew' we were all a little bit taken a back by the price at over £15 a ticket it wasn't cheap. But after the realisation that a yearly ticket is only about £32 for frequent visitors it isn't outrageous.


The gardens were equally as large with over 121 hectares it was concluded that perhaps we had found the perfect summer picnic spot. Although I feel the queues would be pretty large. At the time of year we arrived at the gardens the majority of people wandering round were weekend photographers taking pictures of plants. Which I have to admit made me a little reluctant to pull out my camera as I didn't want to become 'one of them'. However as you can see I was momentarily 'one of them' as were my sisters as you can see by the bark photo taken by my sister.


On arriving we were offered the guide at which point we declined realising that perhaps Wikipedia/the internet would provide just as many facts about the gardens as we would find from the garden. In addition the signs around the garden were amazingly helpful. So here are a couple of facts about Kew you may not know:

Over 700 people are employed by Kew Gardens

The Gardens were handed to the nation by Queen Victoria

The palm house is largest Victorian glass house in existence

The Chinese Pagoda was built in 1761 by William Chambers

We also accidentally discovered a way of finding out more information about the garden. The gardens have a tourist bus (costing £1.99) pulled along by a little cart which meanders its way around the park. As we were wondering down one of these paths we made way for one of these buses who's pace I can now describe as walking pace as with little effort we were now following the tour bus with full commentary blaring out of the bus as to the history of the gardens. Perhaps this may not be considered the best way to tour the park as the tour guide might get angry but for snippets of information recommended.

As is the tradition of my blogs so far, I shall also review the cafes. Kew's cafes as one would perhaps expect were pretty up market with a good selection of tasty things to enjoy. I can recommend the broccoli and stilton soup! As I did not peruse the cafe much I can not give a better review.

The gardens were lovely and well worth a visit at least once, however, what stuck me most about the gardens was that the 'bubble' feel you get as you walk around, as you could not tell you were in a city. For a great escape this place is recommended.

So what else do I have to offer...well in between now and my last post I have been given a photography course for my birthday and a book on photography and so I shall be upgrading my photography skills AND I was given an icing piping bag with nozzles so hopefully I'll learn how to create funky cakes!

Week 1

So the week started well...with my boyfriend having bought a mac I can now pretend to be creative as everyone knows the mac is the creative persons laptop of choice and therefore I am being creative every time I use it right?...No? So besides getting the equipment what else have I done this week which could class as being creative? Well to let people down slightly not a lot....

I started reading Brighton Rock by Graham Greene and if the first chapter is anything to go by the book is awesome. For full recommendations I would wait about 8 weeks given my current pace of train reading.

Apart from that my boyfriend Laurence and I paid a trip to the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. On entering I thought I would love a museum of toys, who wouldn't? Well it started with me realising/remembering that I find dolls and puppets a little creepy rather than entertaining. The initial half an hour of realising I have played with or owned about 10% of the toys there soon wore off and I was left with the realisation that I am old, in fact, older than I actually am. Apparently a good 50% of the toys I owned as a kid were around from 1980 to 1985, either toys in Chester were very dated or my mum stock piled toys from before I was born...i'm really not sure?

A visit to the shop made me realise that perhaps the book selection could do with a bit of updating too. For Christmas 1995 my sisters and I received a great book by Dorling Kindersley (in association with UNICEF) called 'Children Just Like Me'. The book shows children from lots of different countries around the world and describes their lives, likes, culture and clothes. On browsing through the books of the shop I spotted this title and assumed an updated version of the book was on sale, excitedly I flicked through the book to find the book is exactly the same as the one I have at home. Now, I am not normally a person who thinks old books are silly as the reading of Brighton Rock above suggests but when the book is centred around the children being 'just like you' the fact that every child in that book is now at least 25 and all the clothes and toys discussed are pretty dated I feel the book could do with an update. Despite this I spotted 2 adults clearly buying the book as presents without even flicking through it...had they done so they may think it is a little odd that American kids are still wearing bleached denim shorts, tie die t-shirt, high top trainers and playing with the original gameboy!

I also had a spot of excitement in finding not one but two of my childhood tea sets on display. I realise this make me sound like I had more than two tea sets, I should probably say my tea sets were on display. One I have not taken a picture of, this was a small china Beatrix Potter tea set and the other a plastic teddy bear tea set. On discussion with my mum this is most probably an early learning centre circa 1985 tea set...my house mate Sarah also owned this tea set apparently, did you?

So, what can I recommend about the V&A Museum of Childhood? For a dash of reminiscing it is amazing and the restaurant, as with most London Museums, is awesome. I had the lentil, mushroom and leek gratin and it was tasty! The museum is free but for a better museum experience try the national history, the science museum, the tate (modern) or the national portrait gallery to name a few I've been to. On this point I was educated today as I did not realise there were 4 Tate museums of which I have been to 2. I will challenge anyone reading this to name them? If no one does I shall name them in my next blog.

On another note I have knitted an extra 3 lines to my scarf this week also...and if you think this blog is lacking in culture and creativity wait until next week when I will be mostly moving house.

Miss Lazy

With my life somewhat lacking in creative outlets and an endless list of started projects I decided that the only way to get me active and out of my non-creative rut was to do what other people do - blog. So in the past year I have added an endless list of half arsed strings to my bow, these include knitting, photography, bread baking, cup cake baking, "regular" exercising and now blogging to name a few prematurely retired hobbies to which I now have lying around my house (note flower arranging, gardening and the times crossword are not planned additions to my list). My issue comes not necessarily with the lack of will to do these hobbies, which I do oh so want to get better at, but more the lazy affliction of the mind when I could just watch crap tv instead.

In a bid to become Miss Creative, instead of Miss Lazy, I am aiming to write a weekly blog....perhaps every Sunday on how my bid to be creative has gone. Photos will be taken and hobbies shall be taken up with renewed half arsed vigour and yes, for the writers amongst you, I might actually learn to write properly.