PLANTS! BADGERS! GIANT WATER LILIES! A PEACOCK!

Yesterday I took a break from the piles of flattened dead trees and went to see some live ones!  Here's my photo-essay of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

INVASION OF THE CHILD MONSTERS. They’re everywhere.  They always match.  And they weirdly have a lot of male caretakers.  Progress?

  Bench on a little hill. (Or, a quiet spot away from the children.)

OMG you guys a peacock walked by me.

See hole in ground.  Crawl into hole.

Discover: A fake badger!  This, my friends, is a reconstructed badger “sett” (den) created, I presume to keep children out of the real badger setts.

The peacock likes a good fake badger too, apparently.

Steampunk tree roots.  Cool.

Climbing into the treetops!!  Also, annoying planes like that one kept landing or taking off from Heathrow every few minutes.  One imagines no such distractions existed when Queen Charlotte frequented the grounds.

I really did try…

Me in the trees!  The Temperate House in the background.

And now we’ve entered the Temperate House, the largest surviving Victorian glass structure in the world. 

Imposing. Impressive.  The Temperate House.

Tea party in the rose garden!  Isn’t this so cute??????

All the pots and bowls grow plants that make or accompany tea.  Smells divine.

GIANT LILYPADS.

The Palm House.  They pump visible (and audible…) steam in every few minutes.  I had to leave when my heart started pounding and everything got shiny.

Just posing with some rose trellises, nbd.

Kinda looks like the TARDIS, no?

Adieu, temple of the earth.  ‘Til next time.  (Likely tomorrow.)