Visit to Kew orchid festival

Over the last weekend I experienced computer problems and it has finally died. The good news is that I now have a new Think Pad. My son set it up for me and even choose a great front screen picture from my photo collection. Everything is working perfectly and it's great to use.

Winding back to last weekend, John and I visited the orchid festival at Kew Garden. Sunday was very wet and by the time we had walked to the Princess of Wales Conservatory from the car park we were rather wet. However the conservatory has ten computer controlled climate areas and it was nice and warm, and we dried off quickly. The conservatory is a complex structure of interlinked glass houses that provides 10 different climate zones. The orchids were spread across the different zones depending on the needs. This year the festival was showcasing orchids from China but there were orchids from across the world as well. In China, orchids are a sign of the coming of spring.

During the festival the Lunar New Year will occur on 17 February. The year of the snake ends  and the year of the horse will begin. I liked this snake getting ready to leave . Both me and my new grandson were born in the year of the snake. I am a water snake and he is a wood snake.

We came across a dragon, he looked very majestic.

He was surrounded by orchids.

Carp were circling over the next pond. The purple orchids were very pretty 

and this monkey was sitting keeping guard of this delicate pink orchid.

I also got diverted from orchids for this flower

and these weird flowers which looked like they had been bought back from a distant galaxy by the Enterprise. I really liked them.

Beautiful delicate flowers,

and a giant panda.

Loved the pretty faces.

The yak was fun and had a lovely woolly coat

I enjoyed the colours and the markings on the petals.

We had fun finding the various animals and also watching the joy on the children's faces when they found them.

A tiger up a tree.

At the end there was a horse ready to welcome the New Year, the year of the horse.

As we walked through I also enjoyed seeing some of cacti.

We headed to the café next for a coffee and a cake. As we left the café it was still raining and it continued for the rest of the day but it was worth getting wet for the orchid festival.

Take care

Lyndsey