London's Parks

Where we are living in Kensington which is to the west of the city there is a string of beautiful parks which almost join each other all the way to London.  It's hard to say we favour one over the other because they are all special in their own way.

HOLLAND PARK  ~ Five minutes walk away

The closest one to us is Holland Park which is about 22 hectares,  an enormous area considering its location in the city. It's a very quiet park in that the noises of the city traffic are a mere drone in the distance. The northern half of the park is natural woodland, the central section near the ruins of Holland House is more formal with several garden areas, and the southernmost section is used for sport. The park is the site of the ruins of Holland House which was hit by bombs during the second world war.  Elsewhere in the park is an Orangery, a giant chess set, a cricket pitch, tennis courts, a youth hostel and a beautiful Japanese garden called the Kyoto Garden. There's a children's playground, squirrels and peacocks. The remains of the house form a backdrop for the open air Holland Park Theatre, which is the home of Holland Park Opera. There's a huge project going on at the moment - but I haven't found out what it is yet. 

The park is named after Lord Holland who became a Lord at age one when his father died in 1774. He entered the House of Lords in 1796 where he remained, dying in office in 1840! His statue is surrounded by a pond.

Holland Park wildlife - a hungry heron

And an inquisitive squirrel

The Kyoto Garden

And after a snowfall


Our friend Renate, visiting from Munich, in front of the monument to
Lord Holland complete with a pigeon on his head!

KENSINGTON GARDENS ~ 10 minutes walk away

This park is beautiful. At the western end Kensington Palace sits overlooking the length of it past a statue of the young Queen Victoria and over the Round Pond, through to the Long Water and Serpentine which divides this park and Hyde Park.  Kensington Gardens covers an area of 111 ha and lies between Kensington High Street and Bayswater Rd.

The immediate area of the palace has numerous embassies from around the world.   It houses the most expensive houses in London. There are many features in the gardens including the Lady Diana Memorial Fountain which is stunning, the Italian Garden, four fountains, classical sculptures and the children's playground.

The unusual and beautiful Lady Diana Memorial Fountain

Kensington Gardens leading to Kensington Palace

The incredibly ornate Albert Memorial. It is stunning.

 More to come.....:-)

Kew Gardens

Stunning Kew Palace in the sunset - unfortunately closed during the winter

Watching many episodes of David Attenborough's series on Kew Gardens, also the location of Kew Palace, had inspired us to see the gardens for ourselves. We set off on a freezing cold but lovely sunny day. With snow still lying on the ground it just made the place look prettier. Kew Gardens are amazing.

Kew Gardens has many seats strategically placed, many of them dedicated to those who loved the gardens 

The Temperate House looking far from temperate

A sculpture of a lightening strike
which occurred on the site

From the Palm House across a frozen lake to the
Plants and People Exhibition

The interior of the Palm House
from the upper walkway.

 This Chinese Palm Oil Tree located in the 

Palm House is believed to be the 

tallest indoor tree in the world. 

The Prince of Wales Conservatory

Various environment are developed in the conservatory

Laurie outside the Davies Alpine House where alpine flowers
from around the world were in full bloom

Welcome back to London

We landed at 5.30 am and had a few hours to kill before we could collect the house key from our next door neighbours, so by the time we queued to get through immigration and customs it was getting on to 7am. After breakfast we took the underground train to Earl's Court using the Oyster cards we had purchased on line in Australia. It was very convenient to have them on hand. Surprisingly the fare for the 50 minute journey is only one pound 50p or about $A2.25.

We were arriving at the tale end of Christmas celebrations with decorations still in place which was lovely and colourful. We couldn't wait to unpack, have a shower and get some communications organised. Apart from a problem with the shower not working everything was the same. Just perfect. Couldn't wait to re-visit our favourite haunts, Covent Garden, Holland Park and Kensington Gardens.

Christmas decorations at Covent Garden

Kensington Palace January 13th

Kensington Palace a week later

Kensington Palace, now the home of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, has been transformed and updated since we were last here. There's still a large amount of building work at the back in the area of the private apartments.

The change in appearance after the snow was
quite amazing.  The snow came on a weekend and anyone with a child in the family was out and about playing in the snow, tobogganning and sledding.

A young Queen Victoria stands proudly in front of Kensington Palace looking out across the lake. A week later covered in snow.

Kensington Gardens transformed into a playground

Our backyard

Through our bedroom window - third floor

2013 Our first flight in an A380 on the way to Singapore

We can only praise QANTAS for the flight, the food and the service. It was all good. There seemed to be more room in the A380 than in the previous planes we had flown in. The best meal was the slow cooked lamb. As tasty as you'd make at home.

Waiting to leave Melbourne

The tail cam - if you like that sort of thing!

We were headed for Singapore for a three night stay on our way to London. Again we chose the Swiss Hotel - the Stamford with the only down side - no free wifi! Our room on the 56th floor had an amazing view of the harbour and the latest curiosity for Singapore, the Marina Bay Sands Hotel made up of six towers joining at the top and capped off with what appears to be a ship.

The view from our hotel room on our arrival 

The Marina Bay Sands Hotel

Our hotel - Swiss Hotel - The Stamford

Where 'others' stay - Raffles!

As we both love birds - for me the feathered variety :-) - we made for the Jurong Bird Park which has an awesome reputation for educating and preserving species. The staff obviously work very hard with the birds and in particular taking advantage of their intelligence in training some to do some pretty impressive things.

This Tucan and the other parrots just loved being squirted with a water bottle

A beautiful Iridescent Starling in the African Waterfall Aviary

The Flamingoes  acquire their colour from what they eat. They eat algae and crustaceans that contain pigments called carotenoids. For the most part, these pigments are found in the brine shrimp and blue-green algae that the birds eat. Enzymes in the liver break down the carotenoids into the pink and orange pigment molecules deposited in the feathers, bill and legs of the flamingos. Very clever!

These pied hens scratching around seem to be wearing blue scarves

This park handler had the enormous Hornbill literally eating out of her hand

The game here is to see which Tucan is quickest to 'post' the four balls into the hole in the tree trunk.
Quite amazing to watch.

The High Flyers Show was spectacular. Various members of the audience were given rings to hold up and on demand the birds flew through them time and time again. It was no fluke. Hard to capture though, they were so quick.

At the end of the High Flyers Show the handlers brought all the birds out - 125 of them.

The Kings of the Skies Show was equally impressive with birds of prey flying down from high perches - in the open. No aviary. Apart from this magnificent eagle there were sea eagles, vultures, bald eagles and various owls.

These scarlet ibis were stunning

This little cutey was very energetic, rolling, spinning and wriggling in the water for ages.

Next day we thought we'd find the Electronics Expo which we had visited on other occasions but as the centre where it is usually held is being refurbished we had to catch a taxi to it! Bad idea. The exhibition was definitely below par and not worth going to. We had to queue in a sea of humanity to get in, nearly an hour - then when we were five minutes from the entry they opened up all the aisles so everyone just swarmed in! Grrrr!

With that waste of time behind us and it being such a lovely day - although a bit hot and steamy as Singapore is - we took another taxi to the Singapore Botanical Gardens.  This was treat. An oasis in the heat. 

Singapore Botanical Gardens

The Australian High Commission Christmas tree. There were hundreds of these around the gardens.

Laurie relaxing in front of the gazebo

A huge tree base

The swans on Swan Lake

The real swans on Swan Lake

Laurie with one of his 'fans'

A beautiful memorial to Chopin from the Polish Government

Stunning colours

Caption not required!

The orchards are amazingly diverse

Apart from a problem with the pricing of breakfast at the hotel everything has been great. We had eaten the first morning at the Lobby Cafe which was excellent and the next day thought we'd try the other restaurant, the Swiss Cafe for breakfast which had a sign out the front advertising the same breakfast at the same price.  As this restaurant was higher in the building we thought we would give it a try. Because it was so good on the second morning we returned on the third morning.  As we left on this morning we were asked to sign a chit for $88. We thought that was for the four breakfasts we'd enjoyed for the last two mornings however on checking out there was an amount of $176 for the last two mornings breakfasts on the bill! We hadn't been given a chit to sign on the second morning. On challenging the amount we were told the breakfast was $44 each in the Swiss Cafe and that the sign I had seen said that. At $44 per person for breakfast, we would never have considered eating there!

Ah yes on checking it did say in very fine print the deal referred to the Lobby Cafe!  On thinking on this after we'd checked out, I wrote to the hotel expressing my disappointment at the misleading sign and that we had wanted to re-book for a stop-over of two nights on our return to Australia.

After some tooing and froing the hotel catering manager very kindly agreed to giving us a breakfast voucher to the equivalent for our return visit. That was damage control and really well handled.  I will be interested to see if the sign is the same when we return at the end of March.