england #8- brought to you by the letter kew

But first….

Yeah. And it’s getting much worse before it gets better. We are experiencing an Arctic Oscillation, apparently. I have no idea what that means. But it’s not good.  We’ve probably got eight inches of snow by now, but more is on the way. Along with 60 mph winds and temperatures that will not be above 12 degrees and lows hovering just above 0 until at least Wednesday. When we experience a heat wave of 25. Maybe. The forecasted highs keep dropping. Not going to work tomorrow – finals were postponed and the dean told us Friday that we don’t have to come in. And Senator For The Dark Side finally brought our kerosene heater back tonight, so we’ll have heat if the power goes out. I think they fell in love with it – they bought themselves one after keeping ours all week. Maybe the power won’t go out. The wind is already howling and it keeps sounding like things are banging against the windows. It’s 13 degrees right now. This has been going on for, I think, a week and a half now (honestly, I’ve lost track already), with the snow and the wind and the frigid weather. It did get slightly above freezing yesterday but that was the first time in forEVER.

On to more pleasant topics.

Kew Gardens!

I love the use of “alight” when directing you to get off the tube. I also love “mind the gap!” and the tube signs that say “way out” for the exits.

Kew was a really neat little town. Yet another little town we’d LOVE to have spent more time in. Lots of interesting little shops and restaurants.

But we had to hurry onwards to the gardens.

Kew Gardens is one of the largest botanical gardens in the world. Of course, we got there at 4 and it closed at 5. So, not a lot of exploration time. But at least we had the pass, so didn’t have to pay admission and then only have an hour. It was still well worth it.

This was a Monkey Puzzle Tree- very unusual –

Kew Palace, the smallest royal palace:

 

Odd statues in the back of Kew Palace:

And a pretty pond with very sociable swans –

You might note that it’s getting a little late in the day in these pictures. What with that sun setting and all. We knew it was close to the 5:00 closing time, but assumed there would be some sort of, oh, alert or something that the park was closing soon. Because that’s how we do things in America — lots of warnings!! But apparently Kew expects you to actually be responsible and keep an eye on the time and get yourself back to the gate before they, oh, LOCK them.

Really, we WERE heading back towards the entrance! Unfortunately, we couldn’t really remember where the entrance was. It’s a big park. And we kept saying, oh, I’m sure it’s fine, they wouldn’t lock the gates until they knew everyone was out!!!

Hahahahahaha!!!

Well, the potential crisis was averted, since a car did finally pass by, that turned out to be a security guy, and he did direct us back to the main gate, and …. unlocked it for us. Lucky we ran into him! He didn’t seem to be actively looking for stragglers, either— he appeared to be kind of surprised to see us still wandering aimlessly about, like the idiotic Americans we obviously were. But we didn’t have to spend the night in Kew Gardens, a lucky thing for us, since it was COLD.

Naturally, we also got lost walking back to the tube station. I don’t think I’ve mentioned how much time we spent lost in London- another reason it always took ten times longer than we expected to do anything. We were constantly getting turned around and going the wrong way. Neither of us has the best sense of direction in the world, even with maps in hand, and it was a little complicated getting back to the Kew station from Kew gardens. Especially when it was just about dark and we went out a different gate than we went in.

So we walk and walk and walk, and we start across this great big bridge over the Thames…..

And we’re both thinking, “ummmmmm….. do NOT remember walking across the Thames over a great big bridge. How odd…..”

And it was totally my fault because I’d been POSITIVE we were going the right way. And I still thought we weren’t that far from the station. So we went on across and asked this nice man who was waiting on a bus how far we were from the Kew tube station. And he stared at us and said, “To WALK?!?…. well, ummmmmm….. you’re WALKING???” Then he told us the best way would be to catch that bus and then change to ANOTHER bus because we were a LONG way away!!! He did tell us that very nicely, and not like we were complete American Tourist Idiots at all. Have I mentioned how nice everyone we ran across in London was? Amazingly nice, and helpful, and more than once we’d be standing staring at a map and someone would stop and ask us where we were trying to go, and then tell us exactly how to get there.

Anyhow, the bus sounded way too complicated so we just turned around and walked back to Kew Gardens and finally figured out the right road back to the station, but we WERE a long way off. Probably three miles, so even though we were totally used to walking a gazillion miles a day and three was really nothing in comparison to what we’d been walking, still, we were EXHAUSTED and it was a VERY long three miles. But worth it. Totally worth it. And we stopped at our adopted pub on the way back to our house from the Stratford tube station and had a couple of beers and it was yet another fantastic day.

And I must be on a roll – two entries in what, three days time? Maybe I can keep it up while I’m snowed in tomorrow! There’s not much London left, sadly, but then we get to move on to the gorgeous mysterious countryside and the Canal Boat Adventure. Or not adventure. Whichever way you want to look at it.