HERE'S A KEW

j and n took another weekend and decided to tour the outskirts of london again ... hampton court was so much fun so we ventured out west of the city again ... this time to the neighborhood of richmond to wander the kew royal botanic gardens ... it was amazing, beautiful, breathtaking and so relaxing ... enjoy the tour

a nice walk through the neighborhood to get to kew gardens

the grounds of kew

one of the many ponds on the grounds

and one of the many greenhouses

this one the palm house

nice to wander the grounds and get lost for the day

we went on a treetop walkway ...

18m above ground

amazing views

a visit to the japanese gardens at kew

kew palace ... it was closed to visitors

but we wandered around anyways

to warm up we stopped at kew greenhouse cafe

for steak and ale pie and homemade macaroni

seriously the best food ever!

and who could resist a piece of lemon meringue pie that looks like this?!?!

cheers ~n

LOOKING SO FANCY

near the beginning of n's summer vacation she had an ambitious idea to dig up a bunch of grass and build some lower tiered flower boxes in the front yard ... well as n's extended summer vacation comes to a close ... n and her fabulous mom have had a couple weekends to sneak away from the never ending house finishing list and step out in the sunshine that finally came and build the planter boxes and finally fill them up with cedar mulch and i must say they are looking so lovely

with the addition of our spacious and lovely veranda came the challenge of trying to salvage the skinny walkway and make it appear larger than it really is ... enter some gravel from the backyard used to make the teeny tiny sidewalk appear bigger

the flowers now reach all the way to the sidewalk

who doesn't love symmetry? it was a little tricky to get this but i think it looks fab

side profile ... so nice to have the front almost done

i am pleased with the end result

cheers ~n

FIXING THINGS UP

n has been busy fixing up the front yard and trying to make it more beautiful ... anything to take the focus off the disastrous mess of the house ... things have been planted, flowers are blooming and things are definitely looking more pretty ... the planter boxes still have to be built and the cedar mulch put in but here's a peak at the changes

p.s. n can't wait to be done work and have a whole bunch of time to keep working on this:

the shrubs moved from the backyard now sitting pretty in the front

adding more flowers and shrubs to the middle plant box

soon to be a collection of pinks, blues and purples ...

can't wait to see all the prettiness

looking up from the sidewalk

all the grass n dug out the previous weekend ... slowly but surely

waiting for the boxes to be built and cedar mulch

cheers ~n

DIGGING A HOLE

this weekend n busted out the shovel, rake and spade and dug dug dug out a whole bunch of grass in the front yard ... this was a long time project that j and n have wanted to do since moving into this quaint lil' house that needs ever so much work ... the front yard has quite a steep slope to it and the grass that grows on it ... well lets face it the grass really doesn't grow and it looks rather sad and pathetic ... it is mostly a shade of brown with a faintness of green ... so out came the shovel and in a few hours the grass was dug up and the first stage was complete ... n just needed to wait for j and all his muscles to move the chunks out of the way so that the construction of the bottom planter box can begin ... that will have to wait for another weekend ... more to come

cheers ~n