Part Three Of Our Day At Kew,

it was time to go upstairs,

I let Steve lead the way,

I do not know how many steps there were,

but it seemed quite a lot,

the ledgend,

we were making for the opposite corner,

I held on tightly,

it has to be said the view of the house from here was nice,

and I was so glad I took the trip upstairs to look at the metalwork, amazing!

although it was with a certain amount of relief that we stared on our way down,

one of the statues that are in each corner of the main glass house,

I do not know what it is called, 

but the bunches of yellow flowers looked so nice,

and now for something completely different, a huge black fern,

that had leaves unfurling,

it was the black tree fern, (Cyathea medullaris), from New Zealand,

the fern next to the first one had a number of new leaves unfurling,

one of them,

also on each stem,

a smaller leaf would start to develop,

and grow into a new leaf,

into the next room,

where again pods,

would give insight into developments at Kew,

in the distance something yellow really stood out,

it was the Golden Lotus Banana, sometimes known as the Chinese dwarf banana, (Musella lasiocarpa),

apparently it is not too difficult to grow indoors,

providing it has 6 hours a day of full sun, also the flowers can last for several months!

it is these that we are more used to,

normal bananas,

another few weeks and this avenue will be a mass of cherry blossoms,

we walked past the temple and noticed these,

early flowering hellebores,

that bring a touch of colour,

to the garden in the spring,

Steve had a close look at this tree,

the tree not in flower yet,

but when we were here in April 2021 it was in full flower,

and now this one is in full flower,

we arrived back at the Palm House,

and went inside,

where I had to keep wiping the condensation off of my lens,

more steps, but we both thought we would give this one a miss,

we had a good walk around the ground floor,

and exited looking towards the lake,

and the building on the other side of the fountain,

a quick look at some of the Queen's Beasts,

the beds in front of the glass house will soon be covered in tulips,

meanwhile a black headed gull is totally underwhelmed,

a last look,

so we headed to the shop,

lots of plants and tin plate ornaments on offer,

these were new, and a little strange,

bats,

they looked rather cute,

Steve bought a fern from one of these,

going inside,

the number of seed packets,

had to be seen to be believed,

in the next section corms and bulbs,

I remember seeing some of these earlier today,

the shop was doing a brisk trade,

customers everywhere,

Steve made his purchase,

and we were out, we had tried for a table in the gardens café, but there were no spare tables,

so over the road, 

to Kew station,

well next door,

it seems strange going to a pub for a coffee, but there it is,

large white wine for Steve and a coffee for myself, not really I had the wine!

the pub was quite nice inside, we had never been here before,

arriving home after a few quiz shows it was time for my evening sherry and read,

and a cheese sandwich, after which I watched a Midsomer Murder, when Diana arrived home we watched a New Tricks before we were off to bed.