London

---

The view of the Swiss alps from the plane was incredible! Huge snow capped peaks rising through the clouds, glowing a pinky orange colour as the rising sun lit them up.

After 12 hours of flying, an hour or so in finding our way through the maze of Zurich airport to our next flight, then another hour and a half flying, we finally arrived at Heathrow around 9am.

The thing about long flights is you never seem to be able to get comfy enough in a seated position to sleep well, if at all. The thing about missing sleep, and then finding oneself in a different timezone 10 hours the day before, is your brain kinda goes a little hazy around the edges.

To reduce th e jetlag effect, we needed to stay awake while the sun was out, so wemade our way to a friends house in south London to dump our big bags before setting off for the city for the day. Along the way we burnt our tongues on the hottest, weakest, most expensive coffee, found our way through the tube, wandered through Trafalgar Square, and went to bed really early.



After a nice long nights sleep, we were a lot more willing to take it all in without so much effort....It was a (surprisingly) beautiful day, so we headed down to Hampton Palace and gardens. The original palace was the humble aboad of King Henry VIII. The kitchens (filled with servants of course) were designed to cook for over 1500 people on a daily basis! Mainly cooking the meat that the King and his friends had hunted that day, as well as a few vegies and herbs from the garden. When trying to cook for that many people, you need a lot of pots to cook in - here began the invention of 'pies'. Pies were used as a way cooking the meat and the pastry was not eaten at all - contents scrapped out and pasrty thrown out. There was a very tall, narrow, open air, long corridor of rooms which was effectively the fridge. The really tall walls meant the sun couldn't get in, while the open roof meant that it got really frosty in there.

In the surrounding gardens, there are yards lined with Yew trees that Queen Victoria (I think) planted. They are now over 300 years old and shaped into conical shapes as they would have been originally. There is also a grape vine from the same era, which was planted from a cutting (of course) - it is still growing and still produces over 300 kg of grapes every year. To hug the base of the vine would need at least 2 adults to reach, and there is, and always has been, 1 person who lives in a little house next to the vine to look after it.

There is also a very old maze which we wandered through for a while (only getting slightly lost).



The next day we went with Katie to the Boroughs Market which is right near the London Bridge train station. So much tasty food - so good to see such a massive range of mushrooms available! There was also lots of cheeses, deli meats, sweets, and seafood. It's a definite foodies market. After that we went to the British Museum and marvelled at old things.



Friday we went to visit the Chelsea Physic Garden, which is a large garden containing many examples of medicinal plants and plants with other uses (food, materials, oils, etc.). It's really old, and has an amazing history. The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries created the gardens in 1673. After the gardens and surrounding area were purchased by Sir Hans Sloane in 1712, he took over the freehold of the garden. He allowed the apothecaries to keep renting the gardens in perpetuity for only 5 pounds a year as long as it remained dedicated to the study of useful plants. This is still in place today despite some legal challenges (prime real estate you see!). There's an amazing range of plants growing there - it was great to see so many medicinal plants in one place. We went for a guided tour, which was good (apart from the guide saying that "the jury's still out" on whether Echinacea has any effect or not, and in recommending bamboo as an eco-friendly source of soft material).



Saturday we caught up with a friend from Uni who is living in London at Camden Markets. It's a pretty amazing and overwhelming market. Good to see Cyberdog is as amazing as ever. We popped in to The Science Museum for a couple of hours on the way home.

We hadn't spent enough time in the Science museum, so we went back again on Sunday and also spent some time in the National Portrait Gallery.

Monday we got off the train at London Bridge and went for a walk along the Thames to TATE Modern Art Gallery which had some great stuff in it.

---

Photos

Baking da pies
Just don't eat the pastry!

The Fridge
Cold and dark. A perfect fridge.

Stoves
The bits underneath contain ashes in one, alternating with firewood in the next.

London-6
Imagine whole pigs on a spit being manually turned in front of a huge fire.

Pewter plates
They had to get them specially made up to recreate the kitchen. It was hard to find some people still with the skill to make them.

Clock
Shows the sun spinning around the Earth.

Yew Trees
Around 300 years old.

Sunken garden
This used to be a fish pond providing food for the castle

Gardens
The plants are moved out in Summer and back in behind the glass (The Orangery) in Winter.

Grape Vine
The huge cleared area on the left is to allow the roots from the grape vine to grow undisturbed. The vine takes up the whole shed in the background.

The Armory
Decorative and functional

Shrooms
Such variety!

Comments

[Susan Morgan]

Art?
Or, where Art?

[Camille/Mum]

Aaah, London
Thank you for all the news and the piccies. Brought back lots of memories :) Where next?