CYCLE 2 DAY 17
Waking up in a hotel is always a bit of an adventure, however there were no surprises just the routine of getting up and finding out where breakfast is hiding. Having been somewhat of sluggerbeds we arrived for breakfast just as they were winding down the service. Undaunted we headed for the cereal bar, and this is where my day went down hill.
Try as I might I could not muster the strength to open the bag of muesli. I’m no weakling but this little bag of muesli put up one hell of a fight and only gave in when I took my teeth to it. With explosive results. Meusli everywhere, which being terribly british I tidied up into a neat pile and opened a second bag.
The fact that the coffee machine refused to give me coffee because it was choking to death on its own grounds did nothing for my mood. In fact I was begining to feel Rocket like.
We finished breakfast, but not before my partner had informed the staff that she thought it was “pretty crap actually”, and we went off to prepare for our day at Kew Gardens. Booted and camera’d we collected water proof jackets and marched off down Pogoda Avenue to Kew. The usual experience of going anywhere now seems to be the guantlet of staff at the enterance giving you attitude because you just want to pay the entry fee and not give them a donation on top of it. It pisses me off and have now vowed never to give anything to anybody at an entry to any where we go beyond the cheapest entry fee I can get. We bought the bloody guide book what more do they want, blood?
Leaving the blood sucking kiosk behind we headed for the gallery that we missed out last night and we were richly rewarded as the following pictures show.
From the gallery we wander out into the drizzle and headed for the pagoda and the chinese garden. See below.
DAY 
NIGHT
Our greatest surprise was the waterlilly house that we had given a miss to the night before due to the crowds and the fact that the queue was kept moving so there was no time to linger. Lingering was all we wanted to do in this display, it was truly beautiful.
We stopped for coffee and pastries at some point and we also stopped for lunch but we kept finding our way back to the glass sculptures that by day were different colours from the illuminated night show. A selection is below.
Eventually we tired, had a final drink and headed for the hotel and I set about preparing the blog and my partner did the internet shop for the week. So after a day of beauty we now face a hotel meal, football, if I am lucky, and an early night before the drive home tomorrow and the prospect of seeing the Tigers play for the first time this season. This feels like one of those rare cancer free days. I’ve been okay and okay is really good.
