January 2014

[iguana]

This month I went to Kew Gardens' After Dark, saw an ice sculpture contest ongoing at Canary Wharf, walked along Regent's Canal, and finally had a long weekend in Dorchester where we stayed in a medieval gatehouse!

Bongling trees, ice sculptures, and Wolverton Gatehouse

Bongling trees

Kew Gardens had put on a lit-up walkway around part of the gardens, which Emily and I visited in early January.



The path lead us around green-lit bamboo, lanterns hanging from walkways, and colourfully lit up trees.



These trees' colours were controlled by the public with big buttons on a platform. Each played a note from a different musical instrument when the colour changed. It was pretty funky!

There was also a fire garden, with burning stakes arranged in a Fermat's Spiral.

Finally, the big greenhouse was awesomely lit up to music at the end of the trail:

Ice sculptures



We went to Canary Wharf where an ice sculpting competition was ongoing. The theme was 'fashion' which most teams had interpreted in a pretty uninspiring way (a giant high-heel shoe, anyone?) However, Emily ended up chatting to the American team who let her take away a pretty hefty block of ice to try some sculpting out on. It's now residing in most of a shelf of my freezer. I shall post photos when she does something with it!

Regent's Canal

Emily, Tim and I met up at Camden Road tube station and walked from there, along the canal, to Paddington station. It was a brilliant sunny day. We went past little Venice and this time we actually went into the floating bookshop that was still hanging around (it had cats in it, and smelled a little like cat pee).

We said hello to the Paddington Bear statue at Paddington station, then walked back to Charing Cross through Green Park and St James' Park.



Wolverton Gatehouse

This year I was invited to stay with Emily, Tim, Pete and Matt on their annual tradition of staying in a Landmark Trust property each January.

We had picked Wolverton Gatehouse in Dorchester, which had a big living room with a massive fireplace, and bedrooms with bathrooms in the towers.



We went on a walk that took us to Maiden Castle, which is atop a pretty big hill. The wind up there was very powerful, and I had fun leaning as far into it as I could.



And here's a cool photo I took.



We had a great time hanging out in the house too, with a collection of puzzles, Ryan North's choose-your-own-adventure Hamlet (highly recommended), and lots of Dominion played. We ate chocolate croissants and roasted marshmallows on the fire. And we were nice and snuggly in our thermal underwear!