I'm sorry for the puns. Kind of.
Today I headed to Kew Gardens, and even the walk from the tube stop to the gate was beautiful.
I happily stood in line for Kew gardens, playing with the word "Kew" for the 45 minutes I kewed...sorry. Queued. The gardens themselves are amazing, and I visited a palace that made me cry, thinking of the real lives of the people who lived in the deceptively large house, right in the middle of these beautiful lands; they never returned when their mother, the queen, died in the house. Outlines of their beds are imprinted on the walls.
This summer, the garden is also home to a dozen glass sculptures by the eye-patched American artist,
Dale Chihuly. The gardens were packed, and getting shots of these sculptures seemed to be the main goal of most visitors.
Note: this is a permanent structure, not a sculpture, but it has some inside!
Some real flowers from inside one of the greenhouses. It's called TINA! Love.
Fake sloth sighting!
Those are real roots, of a real tree. Beautiful.
Look at this guy! And, he's a fountain!
Badgers also make their home in the gardens. A woman was chastised for taking her daughter into the bushes to pee right on top of a badger den, and a garden attendant told her that badgers will fight. I was really hoping to see them capture the pair and take them to their world underground.
Second badger sign!
I spent a solid four hours wandering around, eating brick oven pizza, reading in the sunlight, and wondering how to spend the rest of my day. Sitting on the grass outside the abandoned palace, I booked a ticket to Matilda: The Musical. YES!
Ok, in part, yes, I want to see the musical. Another part of me is desperately trying to find ways to stay out of the abysmal AirBnB. Around 9:30 tonight, my host tells me she would be happy to sleep in my room tonight and I could sleep in hers. Which is just weird. I will say no and suffer through a little more time here.
ANYWAY.
Matilda was fantastic. I sat in the top gallery and was sure I would tip over and do cartwheels down to the stage on top of everyone's head, but I survived. The child actors were incredible—I remember my school plays in shame. The girl who played Matilda was perfect, and a man played Miss Trunchbull. He was hilarious, but I questioned the choice of a male to take the role. They played up her Olympic past in a wonderful way that I think Dahl would have approved. I left the theater feeling that my muse had given me a little nod for the trip.
