A combination of the hotel internet and the BBC Friday morning made it clear that we could get out to Kew Gardens on the Tube, and that Kew Gardens would be open for us to enjoy once we did so. It was a nice little walk through the town of Kew to the gardens themselves, a few blocks at most.

A taste of the Chihuly to come.

Campanile at Kew Gardens.

Here is my dad being scale for this tree.

They had a little tram ride around the gardens. I'm not sure if it would have been worthwhile for, say, just Mark and me, but we really appreciated the chance to minimize Grandma and Grandpa's walking, so that we could save it for important things. Anyway, this is Grandpa and the tram and the Temple of Bellona all at once. (Why did they need a war goddess temple here? Our guide did not know.)

The grands, Mark, and my folks at the temperate house.

I had known but not really taken much notice of the fact that there would be a Chihuly (Cthulhy!) glass exhibition at Kew Gardens. I'd seen it on their webpage. Truthfully, I think in the back of my head I expected it to be a gallery area away from the garden stuff, and as we were there to see nifty-cool plants, I didn't expect it to have much impact on our visit. It was not that at all. It was...well, there were some pieces that were just by themselves, but a lot of it was integrated with the plants, which was majorly neat.

Also you will notice that it photographs much better than nifty plants when you have a mediocre photographer and a mediocre camera. Please trust me that there are loads of cool plants at Kew Gardens, and that we did indeed look at many of them, not just the glass.

Mark, me, and Dad. Glass Seymours.

I loved the right angles of this tree. Also I love Mark, but I suspect many of you already knew that. More Kew Gardens.