Kew

Last week was really busy, retirement is not restful thank goodness! A new drawing class, more soon, and an extremely good lecture on Lalique, just for Thursday. On Wednesday the girls took me to Kew, A had planned a day off ages ago, there was a wind from Siberia & L had a streaming cold but we had a wonderful day finding little treasures in the "jungle houses". The orchid exhibition was on, but there are so many other wonderful things to look at. I'm always fascinated by the shapes and patterns to be found in plants, often on the micro scale.

  

A fresh Lords&Ladies type of flower, then the dried remains of one from the same family, and below a related velvet one, and the spiral tendrils of a jungly climber.

 This weird little fish lives in a burrow, growing like grass, hiding on any sudden predator movement.

This monster is a little more fishy, behaving as expected.

                                       The organic shapes aren't just in the plants.

In spite of the cold weather, this isn't snow on autumn grass, but fur on a cactus,

and the feathery friend just needs snow and a couple of berries to be ready for next Chrsttmas.