Tea Time in Wonderland

Posts Tagged ‘garden’

What do you love best in the Royal Parks? Here’s mine:

I measure the year through those iconic green and white stripes. When they appear in March, I start dreaming about spring. When they disappear in October, I wave goodbye to any hope of a longer Indian summer and to the last autumn sunshine rays.

If you’re a local, you know they do not come for free: they are rented £1.50 an hour, £3 for 3 hours, £7 for the day. From time to time, a guard will come and check on you, asking for a few coins. Tourists tend to pay for the privilege, Londoners… will migrate to a different side of the park to gain a few more free minutes of siesta.

This year is a festive one. In 2006, 2007, 2008, the parks foundation had worked with artists, painters, illustrators, fasion designers… for wonderful editions. 2009 had skipped a beat – I guess the economical crisis had refocused the projects. But with 2010, new works of art are blooming – 14 new ones:

Shanghai gardens is exchanging with the Royal parks, hence the Asian touch. So elegant!

There is no way to walk out with one of those, you will be stopped within 10 steps of the lawn. However, get a hammer and your piggybank and buy one from the website! The profits will help supporting the gardens and the foundation. count £86 + £20 pp. Models from the previous years are still available and o joy, it counts artists such as Agnes B, Alexander Mc Queen, Quentin Blake, Blek le Rat, Polly Morgan, Raymond Briggs…

Deckchair dreams
The online shop

Pssst: get one of those to go with your chosen park!

I’m back! Now, let’s see what’s new in the city…

- On Thursday, don’t miss this aquatic exhibition…

- …or enjoy a free curry!

- This way for a free musical @ Sadler’s Wells…

- A few dance steps @ the Tate Modern… (By the way, time Out has a 2 for 1 offer for the Exposed exhibition)

-… or an alternative village fete, maybe?

- Always a favourite: Notting Hill carnival!

- Feel nostalgic with this exhibition on Jimy Hendrix…

- I never tire of this yearly press pictures exhibition…

- Discover a few secret places in the National Theatre…

- Treat yourself to an afternoon tea with an Asian touch…

- So you think you know London?

- By the way, do you know the story of the Crystal Palace?

- Yes, pubs and opera can be in harmony, who would have thought so!

- Try to get a ticket for this fab underground dinner!

- Fed up with pop-up shops? Why not give this pop-up cinema a go? It used to be a petrol station.

- Get the kids to learn more abour bats!

- Be zen in a Japanese garden… (give this one a try too!)

You’ll find me… strolling through Chelsea Physics gardens… Testing this edible exhibition… Checking out the Natural History Museum’s 8m long knitted squid… Enjoying some retro glamour at the V&A late night… Where will YOU be?

Eeny meeny miny mo…

- Have a cocktail @ the London zoo! The occasion to try a silent disco too…

- Grab a Boris’ bike and join the London mass cycle ride!

- Too hot? Stop for a pint @ the Beer festival!

- Remember being a teenager? Why not check out this retro games arcade @ Leicester Square for a trip in the past?

- Come and have an afternoon tea at the lovely Phoenix garden!

- Plan a posh picnic (so trendy this year! Even Carluccio’s does propose a picnic set) @ the National Theater for one of their outside representations…

- Love frozen yogurt? Yu-foria proposes two limited editions this week: mango/passionfruit @ their Soho shop anf pistachio @ the Covent Garden one. Mmmmmmh!

- even more outdoor cinema, @ Islington this time: a classic movie and a cocktail pleeeeeaaaase!

- We all know the tube can be sooooo boring. Click here to see where you could find fun art posters to make your trip a bit better!

- This way for pics of the Doors!

- DJ and free concerts @ the Little London Field festival…

- Fancy catching a movie? Time Out has listed the best snacks to go with your movie…

- Buckingham Palace is open to the public for the summer with a pics exhibition of the Queen’s past year…

- Design deckchairs are back in the royal parks, horray!

- How fab, free shows for kids!

- Don’t forget rto check out the Scoop! Free theater on Thursdays to Sundays…

- Celebrate Asian culture with the London Mela: food court, fusion music and bollywood moves!

Pssst, plan ahead! Get up early on the 10th and 11th to win some free theater tickets… Join the freeze flash mob @ Big Ben next Wednesday…

Come and join me… @ the Trafalgar maze on Friday -  60ies themed! And @ the Thames underwater Victorian fair on Saturday…

Nothing looks as elegant as a butterfly’s dance. The fluttering of wings is a poem in itself.

Step in the tropical conservatory and you will come across fabulous butterflies flying free right around you – a magical experience indeed. Some will go from flower to flower, otheres rest on a leaf, drink from a plate of fruit slices… Kids gasp amazed and cameras are zooming around. A gassed house presents a nature lesson: caterpillars preparing their silk cocoons, butterflies just coming out of their chrysalid.

Of course, the Natural History Museum also has a similar attraction -Butterfly explorers , open for the second year in a row. More central, exactly same principle. But it looks… temporary, the vegetation was planted only for a few months survival. @ Kew, the conservatory is there permanently, the vegetation is settled, here a lily pond, there tropical flowers blooming and at the back banana trees. Ideal and really tropical. The entry fee is more expensive (£13.50 for Kew against £6 for the Butterfly explorers) but you will access so much more – 121 acres of gardens, Victorian conservatories, promenade in the tree tops… A day will not be enough to see it all!

Kew gardens
Princess of Wales conservatory
Victoria Gate
Kew Road
Richmond
Surrey TW9 3AB

Fee to visit the whole park: £13.50/adult, kids go free.
Butterflies will happily fly around the conservatory until Sept 05, 2010.

Butterfly explorers
Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
London SW75BD

Until September 26, 2010
£6/adult, £4/child,  free for under 3s.

British are not know for their chocolatier, bur believe me my friends this one steps aside.

Instinct usually guides me to complex, poetic, floral alliances: jasmin… orange and geranium… basil… Moroccan mint… Here you’ll also find starwberry or fig marshmallows. Enought to get your radar mad! But classics are a little piece of heaven too.  Do fall for the chocolate and liquid salted caramel. Oh, I have to close my eyes even now.

Decoration is retro, comforting. A bunch of flowers made with colourful sugared almonds here, chocolate laybugs there. The packaging was inspired by an French engraving of 19th century chocolate mould an declined in different colours – butterflies cut out of it fly away on the walls.

As Petra from the Choc star van, Chantal Coady was led by her passion for chocolate. A punkish art sudent, she just jumped for adventure in 1983 – only with a few weeks experience at Harrod’s. Well, that’s a lesson: always follow oyur dreams, especially if they’re 70% cocoa made.

Do prefer the Knightsbridge boutique.  A window in the floor gives a view of the workshops going on. You can take chocolate lessons here, whether you’re a grown-up or a junior chocoholic.

This is one of my secret hideaways. There is a tiny garden behind -  a lovely court, only a handful of tables, white walls, mosaics and a few white roses… Blue sky above you, round mirrors reflecting details… So peaceful! Get rid of your watch and iphone, get a coffee and one of their marvelous truffles and just forget everything.

Rococo Chocolates
Belgravia/Knightsbridge
5 Motcomb Street
London

Vegans will find their heaven here too.
Cross the street and gasp at the huge meringues and splendid tarts from Ottolenghi.
Macaron-fans will be delighted to learn Pierre Herme will be opening his boutique a street away from here in September 2010. You’ll have to beat me there!

Londoners often sigh when looking at the entrance fee for Kew Gardens. 121 hectares of splendid land for sure, splendid Victorian greehouses of course… but £13.50? More than a trendy exhibition? When one has Hyde Park and Kensington gardens nearby? Let alone that this is not central London and that you need all your Vitamin C if you’re planning to take public transports with a pushchair…

The last few years, the park has done its best to seduce families again. Summer festivals, concerts in the summer, temporary exhibitions, free entry for kids… and even a great interactive covered play area where parents will gain at least an hour of peace no matter what the weather turns out to be.

Our favourite, the one that for us is worth every single penny of the ticket remains the tree topwalk. No way to beat this.

From afar, you only notice tree trunks.Come closer and you will glimpse rust-coloured pillars. Look up -  meet Xstrata (who the hell chose that name?), a walk that will take you 18 metres up (118 steps or a quick lift ride depending on your energy of the day) and which was built in 2008 by the same architects that did the London Eye.

Here you are, same level as the highest branches of those 200 years old chestnut trees… The kids love it. Engravings  at kids levels explain biodiversity, the role of seeds and birds. Afar, you can just make London profile, Wembley stadium and on good days even the gherkin. You’re right between the last leaves and the sky. A Peter pan feeling, freedom, everything seems possible…

You instinctively touch the limes, oaks leaves with a sudden tenderness for those green giants. Kids love it too, gasp at the height, and will afterwards look at the forest differently, slightly in awe. They had never quite understood how tall those trees were. Neither had you, for the matter. My 4 and 1/2 princess will ask to go round again, pleeeeaaaase. Imagine how beautiful it must be in winter, all frosty or even better snowy!

200 metres of promenade that one would really love to go further accross the park. Get back to earth? Sure, but we’ll keep stars twinkling in our eyes…

Kew gardens
Victoria Gate
Kew Road
Richmond
Surrey TW9 3AB

Fee: £13.50/adult, kids go free
If you come by car, choose a Sunday, parking in the street will be free. Do come early though, spaces go fast!

So hard to choose, isn’t it? Should you relax in the garden with a glass of Pimms, while the man of the house is working on the barbie? Or stroll around London, enjoying the sun in the parks or drinking a cocktail on a terrasse? Can’t believe how much is going on this week-end!

- Thursday, rush to Trafalgar square, it’s Canada day! Cirque du soleil, music, hockey tournament..,

- Were you wondering how pop-ups could be even more suprising? Well… This one proposes thai sauce crickets amd white chocolate scorpions every Thursday in July. For free. No worry, they also do propose more conventional dishes (though you will have to pay).  Nice place to take adventurous friends (and if they do like insects, there is a range at Fortnum and Mason’s and Selfridges)

- Like to travel through time? Then you’ll love this retro evening -  a drive-in! The cars are already there, you just need to snuggle and order some popcorn from the waitresses skating around….

- The Tate Modern is such a sweetie – litterally! – for the festival of architecture…

- Talk to strangers (and have a free meal)!

- have a look at the disused Aldwych tube station, reopened for a very limited time…

- Photo amateurs will love this discovery day of Shoreditch…

- Kensal Green, one of the beautiful Victorian cemeteries of London proposes guided tours of its catacombs…

- Are you a quick swimmer? Well, splash and see whether you can win this race! Your prefer a gentle swim? Head for the city’s lidos.

- Take your Eisntein Juniors to the Science Museum’s new exhibition -  Who am I?

- Last year, the British Museum celebrated India, this year it’s Africa’s turn…

- Too hot… Thanks God for the beer festival!

- Or have your pint with a pinch of blues…

- have a different Sunday and celebrate American style…

You’ll find me… picking strawberries and raspberries… Having yummy food with delicious friends @ Jamie’s Italian… And picnicking @ Kew Gardens (they also have a cute photo exhibition).

How about you?

London may not look so but is an extraordinary green city. Your first thought goes to the 5 royal parks, of course, but what about all those privates squares, those you can only admire from behind the fence?

Then there are other kinds of oasis -  lovely community gardens, although hidden from sight very often do welcome visitors too. Think of the Phoenix Garden!

Another one is Roots and Shoots. Just send them an email precising which day you’d like to come by -  they’re ever so welcoming. They also do have 4 open days a year like the Open Garden Square week-end.

28 years ago, this was a derelict place.  Of the previous factory, just a few walls in ruins and pieces of concrete. The only clue of nature was a lilac bush. This acre of land becomes a community garden in 1982 and also serves as a vocational training centre for young people.

What a paradise now! The staff prefers to leave it as natural looking as possible with a wild flower meadow in the middle but also adding little houses for bees to settle. Walk through the narrow paths to discover the two ponds (I had never seen so many frogs at the same time!), let the kids wander to the dragon den, read the Blake quotes here and there… You really feel in the countryside. You wouldn’t even be surprised to see a couple of rabbits or even a fox appearing.

The staff is great, always happy to tell you about that wonderful walnut tree or the formidable biodiversity the garden shelters: 30 species of bees, and 50 of butterflies! Look in the appletrees too: I countes more than a hundred ladybirds there… On the day I visited, they had a family of grey tits in a bird house with a camera on top: you could watch the parents’ constant ballet to feed them insects and the 6 babybirds waiting with their beak wide open…

A truly magical place, just 15mn walk from Waterloo (you can also pause @ the fascinating Imperial War Museum on the way)

Roots and Shoots
Walnut Tree Walk, off Kennington Rd
London SE11 6DN

Free

London counts more than 600 wonderfuls gardens, some widely know, others hidden away from view (have you tried the Phoenix Garden or the St Thomas hospital one?)

Just in front Kensington Palace is their sunken garden – strangely often unknown although it is adorable and free. With spring it gains such a range of vibrant colours! A soothing view and you’ll find benches on the promenade surrounding it.

To parallel the Enchanted Palace exhibition, the arches have been jewelled with wonderful iron lace, best enjoyed at sunset time…

Sunken Garden
Kensington palace
202 Cromwell Rd
London W8 4PX

Free

Pssst: to discover many more private gardens, don’t forget that June 12-13 is the Open garden Squares week-end! A few pics from last year this way.

Fed up with the classic London shots? The usual view of Big Ben from the bottom of the London Eye, or from Westminster Bridge (where you have to fight against the constant flow of passers-by)? Fancy enjoying this iconic view but without the tourists?

Take your packlunch to the other side of Westminster Bridge – where St Thomas Hospital and the Florence Nightingale museum are. There also hides a lovely garden – relaxing, quiet, very often empty, but with a splendid view on the Parliament.

The hospital bursar used to have his house here – it was all bombed during the war. In 1972, it was decided to keep it as an open space with this abstract fountain by Gabo.

Particularly enjoyable @ sunset time…

St Thomas’ Hospital
Lambeth Palace Road
South Bank, SE1 7EH

More secret gardens?
- The Phoenix garden, close to the Soho buzz
- The Kyoto Garden, soooo zen!