Day 8 – Kew, Ham and The Suffering

Note: Apologies to readers who could not see yesterday’s pictures. The Internet failed us before I could fit them in. I cannot say that normal service will be resumed as we are at the mercy of the available communication infrastructure.

Readers will enjoy this elaboration of
Maslow's hierarchy of basic needs 

We were awoken gently to the sounds of London coming to terms with a Monday morning. Or, if not London as a whole, at least that part of it which is sitting in a queue on Kew Bridge. A queue on Kew Bridge: that cannot of course be original and it is there by accident.

I decided that a trot down the river path in the direction of Richmond would be the thing to get the system moving after the joys of yesterday’s nuptials. I pounded off and was rewarded by several sights. I do not know when the investment into the riverside pathway (or walkway: it is 2 or 3 metres wide) was made. I imagine when the world had money to spare for such matters. But there has been some serious investment made in shoring up the sides of the river and in securing a pathway.

A luminescent green pool like I saw

At one point I ran with the river on my right and a series of the brightest and most luminescent green algae-covered pools. There must be some serious oxygen available to crank up some major photosynthesis to make the colour that way. I am, by the way, possibly betraying the inadequacies of my recollections of my high school biology. Whatever my inadequacies these pools were of the most wonderful luminescence. i would not, however, want to swim in them!!

I passed what I later found to be an old boating pavilion  Beautiful Georgian architecture of the kind that I reckon the English were pretty good at.

A boating pavilion

Further on and on the opposite bank was Syon Park which belongs to the Duke of Northumberland and is now his family's London residence. This is a most impressive structure set back some way from the river with a view across an expanse of green lawn to the river. You just can’t imagine living in a place like that: what on earth would one do with all the rooms. Of course an army of servants would help.

Syon Park. The London Butterfly House was based in the grounds of Syon Park from 1981 until its closure on 28 October 2007 due to the Duke of Northumberland's plans to build a hotel complex on the land. That's the aristocracy at work for you!!

I trotted past the Richmond Weir and Lock. I had forgotten there were locks on the Thames. This one must be there to assist with the weir. Each gate weighs 32 tons and is 66 feet in width and 12 foot in depth. I say I had forgotten that there were locks on the Thames. I imagine that at one time I knew that for a fact but I do recall from Jerome K Jerome’s novel “Three Men in a Boat” that there are locks and I seem to recall that the three men (not forgetting Montmorency the dog) had some trouble with them. On their boat trip they found a dead body in the river: we have been spared that. It would have been inconvenient.

Richmond Lock

But while I am digressing, I am reminded that we are to get a train to Edinburgh tomorrow. In “The Three Men in a Boat” our hero tells of how he was asked by a friend to take some cheeses from somewhere to somewhere else on the train. These cheeses were at their height of ripeness and drove all-comers from the compartment in which he was seated. He had the compartment to himself. Perhaps I should look for some ripe cheese before we leave.

I ran as far as Richmond Bridge (the road one not the rail one) and then turned around. It was a beautiful day again: the air was fresh and the track remarkably free of humanity. We had breakfast on the bow of the boat and watched the world go by: the traffic on the bridge, the fours and eights rowing by at great speed.

Richmond Bridge

We breakfasted on the prow of the boat in the fine September sunshine to a backdrop of traffic noise and the other sounds of the city.

The G at breakfast with two red buses behind on the bridge. I think the mug reads "Keep calm and carry on". She clearly felt this was the mug for her ... as indeed am I also the mug for her. Ho! Ho!

The G is unable to allow me to sit and chill for any longer than a handful of nanoseconds. She decided that we would take a stroll through Kew Gardens (www.kew.org) and then we would go to Ham House. I looked on Wikipedia and saw that Ham House “is claimed by the National Trust to be "unique in Europe as the most complete survival of 17th century fashion and power." I think probably someone allowed his or her enthusiasm to get the better of him or her. I suppose the word “most” is the critical word.

As it turned out The G’s itinerary was over-ambitious in the extreme. The trouble with walking is when it is done slowly. If you set out with a purposeful stride then all is well. If however you amble around shops or, in this case, gardens and country houses then your feet ache, your back hurts and – as in my case – your right big toe gives you grief. That is The Suffering.

The stroll through Kew Gardens was OK. I am OK with gardens but I like rather to sit in them more than I like looking at plants. I am not quite with Francis Neate (whoever he was) in the illustration below.

Good old Francis Neate: this is the sort of way that I would like to be remembered.
Mine might be "The G who thought of everything and Trevor who didn't"

But having said that we did see millions of flowers. There is a pictorial record below. The flowers are beautiful – except for the ones that eat you!! I do not know what all these gorgeous blooms are but you can enjoy the pictures nonetheless.

Pretty flowers

A rock garden

The G resting in an arch

A yellow flower of great beauty (Beginia glabra)

A lily pond complete with Amazonia lilies (the word "Amazonian" refers to their place of origin as well as to their size)

The same lily pond but you can see how big these lilies are. They are serious lilies!! 

This is a carnivorous plant - stay away from it or you will sorry

Not only can you see the carnivorous plant from the previous picture
but at the bottom there are Venus Fly Traps

The G in leaf

A flower among flowers. What more can I say?

You have to be really carefull when you're walking about. What is this thing?

A very large conservatory that is presently under renovation. It is called the Temperate House clearly a building after my own heart. Built in 1860, it is the largest surviving Victorian glasshouse in the world. It covers 4,880 square metres and extends to 19 metres high.

We emerged, finally from the Gardens, onto the high road to Richmond. I had assumed that The G had researched carefully the route and distance to Ham House but this proved not be so. By now the English weather had decided to deliver what might be the warmest September day on record.

Figures from the UK Met Office: it was certainly hotter than the 17.9 deg C average maximum temperature!!

We took a taxi from Richmond to Ham House. We were already pretty wiped out from trudging around and made it pretty smartish to the Orangery Café for refreshments. Now, why do all these places have things called orangeries? Orangeries were part of any fashionable house in 17th to 19th century Europe. They can be found as far away as Moscow and, apart from Kew Gardens, there is one at Ham House. Didn’t see any oranges, though!

Ham House was moderately interesting. It was built in 1610 and but in 1626 the house was leased (by the King) to William Murray, 1st Earl of Dysart. His wife Elizabeth had an eye for fine furnishings and shipped in a load of stuff from all over the world just as trade routes were opening up.

Ham House

The house is full of 17th and early 18th century paintings whose frames are clearly so good that they warrant a book called “The Picture Frames of Ham House”. I resisted the temptation to purchase this no doubt worthy study as I do not suffer from insomnia and can fall asleep by natural means. There was, however, a rather nice lavender garden which The G caused me to photograph from an upper floor window. She pressed me to rank this garden with Kew Gardens but I professed that I was not man enough for that task!!

A lavender garden at Ham House. The G thought this ranked with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

I knew that transport back from Ham House would be hard so, our weariness notwithstanding, we set off to hike along the river path. This was not as bad as it sounds as we were able to set a reasonable pace and after a walk of perhaps 1½ miles along some scenic riverside we landed up at Richmond and found a taxi back to Kew Green. I decided that a swift one at The Cricketers was in order and that’s what we did.

We were rewarded with some lovely views of the Thames as we walked back

A lovely view of the Thames

After resting at the boat, and discovering that the Internet had gone walkabout, we set off for dinner. We ended up at The City Barge, a fine a very ancient hostelry at the side of the river in the now (to us) famous Strand in the Green. Run by the Metropolitan Pub Company this hostelry dates to the 14th century. We had a satisfactory meal washed down with a(nother) Argentinian Malbec. I must say I am becoming rather partial to the Argentinian Malbecs: they are a lovely blackcurrant colour and viscous enough to coat the glass in a purple sheen. They also help you to go to sleep. I think!!

The City Barge